Some new BMW cars do not support CarPlay and Android Auto for the time being
In the past year or so, the global chip supply shortage has been all-round, among which automotive chips have been greatly affected, once causing major car brands to reduce production and even shut down some production lines. Since the auto manufacturing industry is a pillar industry in many countries, the impact of the shutdown on the economy will be very large. With the joint efforts of all parties, the supply dilemma of automotive chips has eased, but in order to ensure the automotive production cycle, some automakers are beginning to choose to reduce less important functions and add or switch suppliers to reduce the possible impact of chip supply.
“Android Auto phone” by Automotive Rhythms is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
According to Automotive News Europe, in response to an ongoing shortage of automotive chips, BMW has opted to switch chip suppliers to secure production, but at the cost of some new cars that will temporarily not support Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto. It is understood that this is caused by the incompatibility of the new supplier’s chips and needs to wait for a software update to run.
BMW said consumers don’t need to worry either, and that it plans to provide an OTA update by the end of June at the latest.
BMW did not specify which models would be affected, how many, or where they would be sold, other than to confirm that cars with “6P1” in the production code do not support CarPlay and Android Auto for the time being. Consumers from the U.S., U.K., Italy, Spain, and France are currently reporting that new cars are purchased without these features.
