Some BMWs are shipping without Android Auto or CarPlay to avoid delays

Because of the ongoing chip scarcity, BMW is briefly delivery some automobiles with out help for Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, in response to report from Automotive Information Europe (which we discovered via 9to5 Google). In accordance with an announcement the corporate gave to Automotive Information Europe, BMW has modified suppliers and begun utilizing a chip that doesn’t totally help Android Auto or CarPlay. Consequently, the corporate continued in its assertion, affected automobiles will obtain an over-the-air software program replace by “the top of June on the newest.”

As 9to5Google notes, you may verify in case your just lately bought car is affected by checking for “6P1” within the automobile’s manufacturing code. It additionally appears that the entire automobiles in query had been manufactured within the first 4 months of 2022, and have remaining locations within the US, France, Italy, Spain and the UK.

This isn’t the primary time that BMW has delivered vehicles lacking sure non-essential options so as to keep away from delivery delays. Final fall, the corporate omitted touchscreen options from some automobiles, additionally as a result of international chip scarcity. And BMW is hardly the one automaker to take this tack both. Final fall, across the similar time BMW was grappling with the touchscreen challenge, Tesla determined to ship some vehicles with out USB ports. Then, earlier this 12 months, Ford, shipped some Explorer SUVs with out rear local weather controls. 

Within the case of BMW’s lacking Android Auto and CarPlay help, it might be worse. As Automotive Information Europe notes, when Mercedes-Benz was confronted with an analogous dilemma, it selected to not embody the requisite chips in some automobiles, at which level prospects could be compelled to deliver their vehicles right into a ship to have them put in later.