@SeattleCat I'm working as software embedded engineer and I can only imagine/hope that this is a software issue. It could be a hardware issue if the hardware design is poor, something that can't be ruled out. I hope the threshold to go to max brightness mode is a software constant 'goto max brightness if sensor.lux.value >= CONSTANT.THRESHOLD' but I agree that this could also be an analogue hardware circuit...
I switched from a BMW 530e and technologywise it's a big regression. The quality of the software is really poor imo :-(
Other issues I encounter (I'll not mention them all because the list is really long):
- Switching from radio station is not visible in the ui, except from the home screen in the main tablet. So in case your navigation is active, you have to press the home button to get this data. Why not mentioning it on the cockpit view? There is space enough... They integrated a big cockpit screen, but they just show nothing...
- I'm driving a hybrid. When the car is unlocked and the charging cable is inserted (and locked) and I want to leave and thus remove the charging cable, I have these options to unlock the charge cable: A) lock and unlock the entire car; B) press the unlock button on the remote (really stupid if you have keyless entry as I have); C) press the unlock button in the car. Compared with BMW: just open the driver door, the cable is ALWAYS released.
- Driving date: such as actual consumption both petrol and electrical are not displayed, nor the average electrical consumption. You don't have access to anything of these parameters.
- Lacks wireless Apple carplay, my 6 year old BMW had wireless carplay
- Charging timers are only accessible from the mobile app
- The car is consuming a lot of electricity in idle when a charge cable is plugged in
- After charging, you could have less charge as before starting. Consider setting a charge timer overnight of 30 minutes at 6 am. The car remains active until the timer starts, and you will have at least 5% less charge as before plugging the cable in (I'm not kidding)
- 2 buttons on the steering wheel have no function
- Charging current/speed can't be controlled, in my case it's 16A or nothing.
- Switching between drive modes (Power, Pure, Hybrid) is only possible from the menu. They removed the drive mode button from the middle console.
- It's not possible to use the car in 'Pure' mode by default (how many forests of carbon could be saved in the world with this option? I guess a lot)
- a lot more but it will take me to far
You might ask yourself why I bought a Volvo instead of BMW? Well I couldn't imagine it was that poor, but also I didn't want to drive an SUV and the booth space of non-suv competitors is much more limited as the V90. The V90 is really a nice car if you are looking for a sporty and a spacious car.
Lucky the driving experience is well, but I have no hope the issue above will be resolved in future software releases. This car is in production for almost 8 years...