Due to the continuing shortage of chips, BMW is temporarily shipping some vehicles without support for Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, according to a report by Car news in Europe (which we discovered through 9to5 Google). According to a statement given by the company Car news in Europe, BMW has changed suppliers and started using a chip that does not fully support Android Auto or CarPlay. As a result, the company continued in a statement, the affected vehicles will receive an update of the software over the air “by the end of June at the latest.”
Like 9to5Google notes, you can check if your recently purchased vehicle is affected by checking for “6P1” in the vehicle’s production code. In addition, all the vehicles in question appear to have been manufactured during the first four months of 2022 and have final destinations in the United States, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
This is not the first time BMW has delivered cars that lack some non-essential features to avoid delivery delays. Last fall, the company missed touchscreen features from some vehicles, also due to global chip shortages. And BMW is hardly the only carmaker to adopt this approach. Last fall, at about the same time as BMW was struggling with the touch screen problem, Tesla decided to ship some cars without USB ports. Then, earlier this year, Ford delivered some Explorer SUVs without rear air conditioning.
In the case of missing support for Android Auto and CarPlay, BMW may be worse. Like Car news in Europe notes that when Mercedes-Benz faced such a dilemma, it chose not to include the necessary chips in some vehicles, at which point customers would be forced to put their cars on board to install them later.
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