Volvo Offering Free Over-the-Air Infotainment Update for Millions of Older Vehicles

The update will be available for vehicles going back to the 2020 model year

written by Connor Hoffman^{Correspondent
Connor Hoffman has worked in the automotive industry since 2018 in both editorial and public relations. He has tested and written about hundreds of cars and helped lead the media launches of the 2024 Toyota Tacoma and Land Cruiser. Connor is a correspondent at Edmunds and started his career at Car and Driver after a summer internship. He has also contributed to U.S. News & World Report and Capital One Autos. He loves four wheeling and camping in his fourth-gen 4Runner and hopes to one day restore a 60- or 80-Series Land Cruiser.}
edited by Steven Ewing^{Director, Editorial Content
Steven Ewing has worked in the automotive industry since 2003. In that time, he's written thousands of car-related articles and tested just as many vehicles. Steven is Edmunds' director of editorial content and has previously been on staff at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog, Motor1.com, CNET Roadshow, and was the U.S. correspondent for Top Gear magazine. Steven has also contributed to Automobile magazine, Ars Technica, Car and Driver, The Drive, Jalopnik, SlashGear, and dozens of other publications. In his spare time, Steven loves to play the drums, cook, and lust over small JDM cars that never made it to the States.}
9/5/2024
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Volvo's new Android-based infotainment system debuted in the EX30 and EX90 SUVs.
The Swedish automaker is rolling out over-the-air infotainment updates for cars as old as the 2020 model year.
This includes vehicles like the S60, XC60 and XC40.

Over-the-air updates for infotainment systems are helpful for ensuring software bugs and glitches are fixed throughout a car's life, but they're also useful for keeping the tech in older cars up to date. Volvo is doing just that, offering an over-the-air update for millions of its older vehicles with Google's Android software built in, which will give these cars the same infotainment suite as the company's newest models.

Volvo says the upgrade will be offered for free and will start rolling out next year. It's only available for cars built as early as 2020, and the Android-based software still works with Apple CarPlay. The infotainment upgrade will be offered to any of the following vehicles as long as they have Volvo's more recent Android-powered operating system: C40, XC40, EX40 (XC40 Recharge), EC40 (C40 Recharge), S60, V60, V60 Cross Country, XC60, S90, V90, V90 Cross Country and XC90.

Volvo's new multimedia software first came to life in the electric EX90 and EX30 models. It's also made its way to the refreshed XC90, where the infotainment system is displayed on a vertically oriented 11.2-inch touchscreen.

When we drove the new EX90, we found ourselves having to dig far too deep into the infotainment system's menus to find certain controls, which took our eyes off the road. Otherwise, the system proved to be generally intuitive and quick to respond to inputs. The fact that the Android-based software still works with CarPlay is a boon as well.

Edmunds says

Technology is rapidly changing in the automotive world, so keeping a vehicle's tech center up-to-date is crucial. It'll be interesting to see if other automakers make similar moves.

by Connor Hoffman

Connor Hoffman has worked in the automotive industry since 2018 in both editorial and public relations. He has tested and written about hundreds of cars and helped lead the media launches of the 2024 Toyota Tacoma and Land Cruiser. Connor is a correspondent at Edmunds and started his career at Car and Driver after a summer internship. He has also contributed to U.S. News & World Report and Capital One Autos. He loves four wheeling and camping in his fourth-gen 4Runner and hopes to one day restore a 60- or 80-Series Land Cruiser.

edited by Steven Ewing

Steven Ewing has worked in the automotive industry since 2003. In that time, he's written thousands of car-related articles and tested just as many vehicles. Steven is Edmunds' director of editorial content and has previously been on staff at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog, Motor1.com, CNET Roadshow, and was the U.S. correspondent for Top Gear magazine. Steven has also contributed to Automobile magazine, Ars Technica, Car and Driver, The Drive, Jalopnik, SlashGear, and dozens of other publications. In his spare time, Steven loves to play the drums, cook, and lust over small JDM cars that never made it to the States.