Continuation (and end?) of my adventures with the Volvo EX30: the car was able to download the latest update, which notably allows access to Apple CarPlay. But I had to do it at my dealership… for the third time in a row.
Acquiring a new model of car full of technology means taking the risk of wiping out the plaster. I’m well placed to know this since I’ve been riding an EX30. Volvo’s compact and 100% electric SUV has great looks and road behavior that’s difficult to fault. On the other hand, it suffers from painful software bugs, which prove that the manufacturer has absolutely no control over this subject, unlike Tesla.
At the end of September, I wrote that my EX30 was unable to download an update remotely. The download of version 1.4.2 of the operating system, bringing among other things Apple CarPlay, was blocked at 91% and Volvo’s after-sales service, after several discussions, gave me two solutions: go to the dealership for the umpteenth time (which I refused) or wait until the future update. I waited for the “future update”, and if I hadn’t gone to the dealership (against my principles), I would probably still be waiting.
I hope the EX30’s software bugs are behind it
What is CarPlay worth on an EX30?
Above all, CarPlay allows you to have access to applications that are not on the Store (example: Apple Music) and to have a direct connection to the phone (in Bluetooth, you often have to reconnect manually – a bug). The integration is rather neat, despite the accumulation of taskbars, and it’s nice to have CarPlay on such a large screen.
On November 7, when returning home from Douai station located less than 15 km away, I saw a small cloud in the EX30 interface. This symbol means that an update is being downloaded. I was then happy to finally improve the functionality of my car and enjoy the benefits of CarPlay. By the time we took a quick detour to the gym, the download of the update, numbered 1.4.4, was already almost complete. Then came the drama: different update, same problem, with the download still stuck at 91%.
My first instinct was to contact Volvo after-sales service the next day to share the bad news, as well as my anger and the reaching of my limits in terms of patience. I even took the liberty of writing an email to the sales department to request action, given the repeated inconvenience. The company ignored my request, with a response that could be summed up as “seen and doesn’t care”. Judge instead:
« Mr Claudel,
We thank you for your message and please accept our apologies for the inconvenience you are experiencing with your vehicle. We understand the inconvenience caused by blocking the download of updates.
We would like to inform you that software updates are not subject to specific deployment times and may sometimes be subject to bugs. Fixes are in progress, and we estimate that it will take approximately one to two weeks before OTA downloading can resume normally.
Please be aware that our OTA team is actively tracking this issue in the background and working to correct the cause of the blockage. No intervention on your part is required. Please be assured that this monitoring is ongoing and that we are doing everything we can to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.
We would also like to point out that, given the technical nature of the problem encountered, no commercial gesture will be made in connection with this matter. »
At the same time, I took care to contact my dealership to take stock of this situation, with the aim of finding a solution that could satisfy me (I intend to study the possibility of changing cars, in the short or medium term, while remaining faithful to the concession, which has nothing to do with it). If I am delighted with the road performance and the comfort offered by the EX30, I feel wronged by Volvo’s promises. I signed in June 2023 for a car equipped with Apple CarPlay, capable of updating remotely and equipped with the key on the phone — three major arguments in my eyes. Before doing this 1.4.4 update at the dealership (to save time and for fear that nothing would be unlocked remotely), none of these boxes were checked.
Today, the key on a smartphone is still not available and I am not sure that my car is capable of updating remotely (three failures in as many attempts). We’ll see with the next update (1.4.5 or 1.5.0?), but I hope that the EX 30 is free of its software problems, since I regret my choice. I’m not the only one, according to the various Facebook pages dedicated to the vehicle. They are full of complaints and criticisms, which is in no way good advertising for an SUV which paradoxically knows a good launch in Europe.
The update carried out at the dealership still took a little over an hour – a waste of time, since you have to organize yourself to go there and agree to wait while the vehicle is immobilized. Why does the update work at the dealership, but not remotely? The technician explained to me that the dealership downloads the update itself on its own server, which is much more stable than Volvo’s remote ones. The car then connects to the dealership’s infrastructure, without risk of a bottleneck or technical breakdown (normally), and that’s it. You would think that the concession goes through a large USB stick, but that is not the case.
Source: www.numerama.com
