Photo: Volvo Cars
People have been envisioning that we will be flying cars since before George Jetson was hovering over the post-apocalyptic Orbit City in his little middle-class ship. Even in Back to the Future, the idea was that by 2015, people would have hoverboards and flying vehicles. While that sort of technology is being worked on, the cars of 2023 and beyond are more focused on getting updates over-the-air rather than being in the air. At least that's the case with Volvo Cars.
Not even a week into the new year, Volvo has stated that over one million of their vehicles have received over-the-air (OTA) updates across the world. The latest one lets consumers use voice commands through Google Assistant-enabled devices. One of the functions includes warming up your vehicle.
As a side note, I can already see the commercial with a dad in his 50s in a colonial house, wearing a full-on blue checkered pajama outfit, sipping his morning coffee, while telling some kitchen appliance to "Warm up the car for me please." Maybe even two kids yelling, "Come on, dad, we're gonna' be late for school!" But I digress...
Returning to the factual side of things, Volvo's eleventh over-the-air update is expected to be downloaded in over 350,000 cars, which will represent a huge milestone. This latest OTA update will be the single most downloaded one they ever rolled out. While it might not sound that impressive to anyone that's had a smartphone in the last five years, it does bode good things for the future of car ownership.
By that, I mean as long your vehicle is connected to the WWW, and car manufacturers will keep releasing updates for improvements, bug fixes, and so on, you will never have to bring the car into the shop again. Exemptions to the rule exist, of course, when it comes to the hardware needed to operate certain functions.
For example, Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature needs the FSD computer 3.0 to work, which requires physically getting your Tesla with the old Autopilot computer 2.0 or 2.5 to a shop to be replaced. In other words, OTA updates will make your life easier by avoiding these types of situations.
“Thanks to over-the-air updates and our rapidly growing in-house software development, we can create and deploy new features as well as enhance the customer experience much quicker than before,” said Alwin Bakkenes, Volvo Cars head of software engineering.
In this latest update, Volvo owners in the U.S. will also be able to have information about their vehicles at the ready. Meaning that you can check the status of the battery or fuel cells without going into the garage or street to do it locally. You can even start or stop a charging session by using a "Hey Google" command from your device.
Another feature allows you to use the "Hey Google, warm up my car" command from the coziness of your home, just like in my improv commercial from earlier. Important to note is that these quality-of-life improvements via voice commands are only available for the U.S. market for the time being.
There are more features available, and for the entire list, you can check the Volvo Cars app (version 2.5). As far as other countries go, there are plans to expand the coverage to some European markets like Greece, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Iceland.
As a side note, I can already see the commercial with a dad in his 50s in a colonial house, wearing a full-on blue checkered pajama outfit, sipping his morning coffee, while telling some kitchen appliance to "Warm up the car for me please." Maybe even two kids yelling, "Come on, dad, we're gonna' be late for school!" But I digress...
Returning to the factual side of things, Volvo's eleventh over-the-air update is expected to be downloaded in over 350,000 cars, which will represent a huge milestone. This latest OTA update will be the single most downloaded one they ever rolled out. While it might not sound that impressive to anyone that's had a smartphone in the last five years, it does bode good things for the future of car ownership.
By that, I mean as long your vehicle is connected to the WWW, and car manufacturers will keep releasing updates for improvements, bug fixes, and so on, you will never have to bring the car into the shop again. Exemptions to the rule exist, of course, when it comes to the hardware needed to operate certain functions.
For example, Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature needs the FSD computer 3.0 to work, which requires physically getting your Tesla with the old Autopilot computer 2.0 or 2.5 to a shop to be replaced. In other words, OTA updates will make your life easier by avoiding these types of situations.
“Thanks to over-the-air updates and our rapidly growing in-house software development, we can create and deploy new features as well as enhance the customer experience much quicker than before,” said Alwin Bakkenes, Volvo Cars head of software engineering.
In this latest update, Volvo owners in the U.S. will also be able to have information about their vehicles at the ready. Meaning that you can check the status of the battery or fuel cells without going into the garage or street to do it locally. You can even start or stop a charging session by using a "Hey Google" command from your device.
Another feature allows you to use the "Hey Google, warm up my car" command from the coziness of your home, just like in my improv commercial from earlier. Important to note is that these quality-of-life improvements via voice commands are only available for the U.S. market for the time being.
There are more features available, and for the entire list, you can check the Volvo Cars app (version 2.5). As far as other countries go, there are plans to expand the coverage to some European markets like Greece, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Iceland.
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