Android Auto has evolved a lot over the past years, but its purpose remains intact — providing you with an Android experience that can help you with your daily commute. Since it was launched in 2015, its UI has changed a lot, with its latest "Coolwalk" redesign being rolled out to users over the last months. It hasn't even made it to everyone yet, and it's already being improved with a new light theme.

As shown by Reddit user u/shmykelsa (via 9to5Google), Google is currently working on bringing a light theme to Google's redesigned Android Auto interface. This new light interface makes the left navigation bar white with dark status icons, but it looks pretty rough right now — the background behind app screens is still black, and some of the views lack the signature rounded corners. With the settings app also remaining dark in the current state of this redesign, it doesn't look really cohesive with the rest of the Android Auto interface. These things will likely be polished out as Google keeps working on this new light theme.

The inclusion of a light theme might seem like a bit of a step back, especially considering how pretty much everything is turning towards a dark theme now. But Android Auto did not have a light theme at all, as it was removed back in 2019 during one of many Android Auto redesigns. And a light theme can actually come in handy — if you're driving during daytime, you might actually need brighter elements on your screen if there's too much sunlight, so you might want to have a light theme for those specific cases. Once it rolls out, Android Auto could likely introduce an option to switch automatically between a light theme and a dark theme depending on the time of day.

This is not yet rolling out to users, as the Redditor duck into the app's code to enable this, but we might begin seeing Google test it sometime over the next few months, so you should definitely keep an eye out for it if you want to try it out.