Pixel 4a - is it possible to play music (in car) over USB?

Is it possible to play music from my Pixel 4a over USB in my car? My car is a Ford Focus from 2016. If I plug in an iPhone, the car just starts to play whatever music was last listened to (or just starts playing the first track in the alphabet). This is great. However, I'd rather use an Android phone than an iPhone, and the Pixel 4a is otherwise great, but the playing over USB feature is important to me; the sound over Bluetooth in this car is rather poor. Does anyone know if this can be done? I've tried some different music apps - e.g. USB Audio Player PRO - to no avail; even using the USB OTG extension that came with the phone. USB Preferences are set to File transfer/Android Auto I also saw this question: 2012 question from 2012 and thought (hoped) things had moved on since then.