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VOLVO NEWS
New EX60 lease just announced in USA and it ain’t cheap at $6400 (oof) at sign/$600 a month, but it’s a new model and there will be high demand for a half year or so. Six or twelve months after that we might see the cost fall. If you’re more an internal combustion type of person, you’ll lean toward one of these three:
EX30 BATTERY FIRES
Volvo is working to replace batteries in EX30 models in many countries after fires, Thai legal filings. Until then, Volvo is recommending capping charging to 70%. In the US market only 40 cars are affected, build dates span September 6, 2024, to October 25, 2025.
A THOUGHT ON THE DELAYED EV PUSH
Volvo got caught at a bad time with the SPA platform vehicles turning 11 years old this year. SPA cars are the XC90, V90, V90XC, XC60, V60 etc. made after 2015 model year. Volvo’s plan to switch to an all-EV lineup by 2030 was cancelled 20 months ago because Americans stopped buying EVs in droves after the significant post-Covid auto sales bump.The SPA line will need to be extended to perhaps 17 years or more to bridge the gap. What if that doesn’t do it?
Will Volvo develop another gasoline platform or keep the SPA soldiering along? They can’t use the EV platforms (SPA2 and SPA3) because those would have to be reworked extensively to accommodate the very different internal combustion architecture.
For reference, Volvo’s P2 platform served for 15 years, P3 for 12, and P80 was used for 14 years.
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VOLVO 144 STICKER
Get a cool sticker! Whoo!
VOLVO STUFF
- Another Volvo concept car writeup, VESC, perhaps the most important Volvo concept ever. It set the tone (safety) for Volvo for the next 50+ years. Recent other concept cars in case you missed them:YCC, ACC2, ECC
- Evaluating a 2010 S80 T5 with well documented service… is it a decent buy?
- Get your motor oil now. Petroleum products are going to become somewhat harder to find.
- A factory P2 sunglasses holder – I’ve never seen one. Have you?
- 2007 XC70 – Buy or run?
UNHINGED RANT OF THE MONTH™
Like Godzilla stomping cities and destroying civilization, UROTHEM is back. Put the kids to bed and close the blinds, and let’s dive in.
I have two problems with Volvo’s current software: it’s high profile, and it’s a privacy nightmare.
HIGH PROFILE
Not one person has ever asked to see any part of the software that runs MVS web site in the nearly 25 years I’ve run it. Why? Because that’s not the point of the site. The point is to get our Volvos fixed… people go to MVS to locate that information. How the sausage is made is entirely inconsequential and should remain invisible to the user.
But almost every day I read about new Volvo owners asking each other when the newest over the air software update will arrive because they’re worried they are not going to get back the map display in the gauge cluster (or whatever), which vanished mysteriously one or two (or whatever) updates ago.
These owners have become reluctant software update watchers. I don’t think that’s what they want to do with their time. They’re moms and dads, office workers, content creators, teachers, small business owners… people who just want to drive to work or the store without concern for the software that runs their $40-80k Volvo. But since Covid era when Volvo began the switch from the Sensus system, a new sport was born: keeping track of AAOS software updates. The software has gained focus.
The thing that should get no attention has gotten plenty of it. People are discussing the pros and cons of Volvo’s AAOS versions, what was silently enabled or disabled with the latest over-the-air (OTA) update, what broke, and what was fixed. Some wait patiently for fixes for things that stopped working weeks or months ago. Software should be transparent. It should just work, do its job, then get out of the way. New Volvo owners should devote exactly this many minutes thinking about car software: 0. It makes me uneasy knowing that so much time is spent on this.
I feel there is a great disturbance in the force.I was a web developer for my career. While that’s far removed from developing automotive applications, I can tell you with 100% certainty that what Volvo is putting out is not what they’re aiming for, and they need to “up” their game.
(I don’t have a AAOS car. If you think that disqualifies me from commenting on this, I understand. I’m getting my info from Facebook group Volvo Google (AAOS), 2022 and Later,and various forums.)
Also to be clear, many of the complaints about Volvo’s AAOS I read are from owners of very new Volvos – anywhere from 2024 to 2026 models.
PRIVACY NIGHTMARE
I consider privacy to be a sister to safety. One is the safety of the intangible life like thoughts, destinations, memories, and the other the guard of tangible, physical life. I want my privacy/data/location to be guarded like Volvo helps my physical body to survive the sometimes accidentally violent streets and freeways.
Your AAOS data can be used for advertising, insurance, finance, law enforcement, etc, and opt-outs can be difficult. I haven’t done testing of this specifically with Volvos, but that is a common scenario for AAOS-equipped vehicles like 2022+ model year Volvos are.
What Google does is develop services that are free to consumers (Gmail, search, etc.). Likewise they do the same thing with OEM auto manufacturers: Google offers AAOS as a turnkey, free solution to automakers. I understand Volvo’s appeal to this because software is hard. Automakers have shown time and again software is not a core competency.
(AAOS is actually a two-tier product, one is free and the other is actually paid for by the carmaker. The paid “GAS” version provides drivers with integrated Google products like Maps, but that’s getting too far away from this rant’s focus. Just know that Volvo pays Google for the fancier GAS version.)
Volvo has a fairly strict privacy policy covering owners’ driving data, for what it’s worth. I’m not entirely swayed by this because in my 30 years of watching the digital world get larger and more complex, few things are as they seem, and none are unhackable. But more importantly, Google’s own privacy terms also apply for Maps/navigation features, so I’m not sure where that leaves this privacy question.
Volvo says they do not sell owner’s location data. Google says the same, but Google doesn’t need to sell this to advertisers… they are the advertiser. Google holds approximately 28% of the global Location Based Marketing market share, and probably a bit more than that in the US. I’m not advocating we go back to tube transistors and AM radios.
I’m advocating for an in-house effort like Sensus was. Software is not Volvo’s core competency, but they can make it work given enough effort and we’ll all be better off. I think shopping this to Google was lazy surrender.
QOTM
“Graduating from 240 Volvos to P2 V70 caused me to complain a lot about turning radius.”
This, ironically, would also be the MVS Newsletter’s Understatement of the Month if that existed. Quote by volvolugnut pulled from Turning circle differences – V70 and XC70 – Why?
POTM
Photo by VolvoOwl98 pulled from this thread about his XC… “Saskia”
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