Volvo XC90, S90 & V90 get a raft of updates – including Android Auto (pictured
Volvo is further improving their 90 range – XC90, S90 and V90 – with updates including Android Auto and a new D3 diesel. Not not all for the UK.
Not only has Volvo, certainly in the UK, gone from a staple, if often a little boring, need for the chattering classes family transport to a properly cool and desirable range, the change has turbocharged their sales.
Under Geely’s ownership, Volvo is achieving everything Ford hoped it would under its stewardship but never did: Volvo is now a cool, desirable premium brand, offering something different and challenging to the German market dominance. A bit like JLR, another former Ford premium company.
But despite, or perhaps because of, the success of the 90 range, Volvo isn’t sitting still and are constantly improving what’s on offer. And there’s another raft of updates due very soon.
They include Android Auto to add to Apple Car Play allowing drivers, as Volvo is keen to point out, to use it as well as the car’s native functionality thanks to the wonderful big portrait tablet screen in the 90 Series cars.
Other updates include free over air mapping updates (just like Tesla), as well as Slippery Road Alert and Hazard Light Alert which will share the warnings through the cloud with other Volvo drivers. For now, that’s only available in Sweden and Norway but it will arrive in the UK eventually.
Some markets are getting the option of a D3 diesel with a six-speed automatic and 4WD, but not the UK, and you’ll now have the choice of a Maple Brown paint job.
The updated XC90, S90 and V90 are now in production.
Peter says
Is the Android update for only new models, or can the models in circulation get a software update?
Cars UK says
A very good question, and one asked on a couple of emails this morning too. So we asked Volvo who said:
“I can confirm that Android Auto will be available retrospectively for current owners – it’ll be a simple software upgrade, and will be done either through booking the car in at a dealer, or at the car’s next service”
As the very nice chap at Volvo said to us – hope that helps!