u/muzso

I don't know when this happened and I don't see any mention of the change in the release notes either. I usually don't charge the car beyond 95% (most of the time stop at 90%), but today I accidentally charged it to full. And to my surprise OPD still worked, when I drove off from the (public) charger. This wasn't the case 2 years ago, when I bought the car and I'm pretty sure it was the same even a year ago.

I guess that somewhere along the line of the 1.7 or 1.8 updates they implemented OPD simulation, i.e. regeneration is off and the car brakes to simulate regular OPD behaviour.

I don't remember any posts about this either, but it might have been mentioned in comments.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my "discovery". Better late than never. :)

P.S.: from comments it seems that this change was introduced in the 1.6.4 update, together with the stronger OPD level setting (i.e. "High").

There has been quite a lot of interest in Apple Music (so far a dozen or so posts) and I thought I'd test and see if sideloading the official Apple Music app works well enough for daily use in the EX30.

I've been using VLC the same way and despite the app not being optimized for use while driving (thus it cannot be opened as a foreground app), it can play back music while driving and it can be paused and switched between tracks and this is good enough for me.

Of course if you want something that fully works while driving, check out Automus on the Play Store, it has received quite favourable comments in a couple of posts here.

I myself don't actually use either of these two apps since I don't have an Apple Music subscription. I used the one month trial for this test. :)

TL;DR

The Apple Music app works just as well and with the same restrictions, i.e. you won't be able to see the app on screen while driving (if you switch to the Apple Music app, you'll get the usual "Unavailable while driving" screen), but if you start playback while parked and switch back to the home screen (with Google Maps for navigation), you'll be able to see the title of the current track and use the music control buttons to pause/play and switch to the previous or the next track even while driving. And of course the playback keeps on playing as well. :)

Looking at all the versions available on APKMirror, 4.9.7.2 (released and uploaded in September last year) is the latest at the moment that has an APK. An APK is a minimum requirement since you can only sideload these and not bundles (APKS, etc.).

I checked and the APK is authentic (downloaded from the previous APKMirror link): it is signed with the same certificate (i.e. private key) as the latest official version of the app from the Google Play Store.

I've recorded a video of my test. The sound was recorded by the EX30's microphone, so it's mono and has a bit "boxed" feeling to it. Obviously you get far better sound IRL in the car.

Also, you'll see that album cover art is loading a bit slowly and switching tracks has a couple of seconds of pause. It's likely because the car was 2 levels underground and internet connection (i.e. bandwidth) wasn't the best there. The pause is especially long before it started to play the last track that I switched to (it was a shuffle playback of the "Top 100: Global" album/selection). I'm pretty sure that on the surface with good reception it's a lot better.

There's one small bug (?): even if the vehicle is parked, if you touch the song's title or the app's icon on the home screen (above the music control buttons), it doesn't open the Apple Music app. Instead it brought another (perhaps the last opened?) app into the foreground which was AnExplorer in my test. This doesn't seem to be too much of an issue either.

If somebody wants to give this a try, I've made several posts about sideloading, here is the latest.

P.S.: afaik sideloading (i.e. installing an app from an APK) doesn't work in any other Volvo model, just the EX30.

And finally, the video of the test:

https://reddit.com/link/1ukxidb/video/7c9y45f5koah1/player

The official sw. update pages don't show it yet (e.g. the UK version still shows 1.8 as the latest update), but the JSON API already shows the new update details. Probably the website will update in a couple of hours as well.

I've just recently set up a monitoring for the JSON API that e.g. the User Manual application in the car uses to fetch the release notes and I just got a notification that this API returns now details for v2.1.

If somebody's interested, the following command shows the latest sw. version:

curl -sL -A "okhttp/4.11.0" "$(curl -sL -A "okhttp/4.11.0" "https://support-car-content.volvo.care/api/car-content/SOFTWARE_RELEASE_NOTES/<VIN>/UNTIL/9.0.0" | jq -r ".content[] | select(.language == \"en-GB\") | .url")" 2> /dev/null | jq -r ".releaseNotesDocument.body[].softwareVersion // empty" 2> /dev/null | sort -Vru | head -n1 

And this shows the entire release notes (for all available sw. versions):

curl -sL -A "okhttp/4.11.0" "$(curl -sL -A "okhttp/4.11.0" "https://support-car-content.volvo.care/api/car-content/SOFTWARE_RELEASE_NOTES/<VIN>/UNTIL/9.0.0" | jq -r ".content[] | select(.language == \"en-GB\") | .url")" 2> /dev/null | jq -r ".releaseNotesDocument"

And now for the part that's interesting to everybody, the 2.1 release notes. Note that the title says 2.0.4, but the JSON shows "2.1" as the "softwareVersion". Somebody already dropped recently in a comment that a 2.1 is coming, so this seems to be the correct version.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Updates in software 2.0.4

Software release date: 2026-06-10

This update will be available as an over-the-air download about three weeks after the software release date.

New features

A new design

We've made some important updates to the display's user interface to enhance usability. You can now customise the contextual bar to give you quicker access to favourites and frequently used functions. We’ve also added a side panel to the car settings view to provide a clear overview of the different setting categories.

Android 15

Your car now uses Android 15.

This update brings several improvements to your car’s operating system.

Improvements

Drive settings

Settings for One pedal drive, adapt to speed limit and steering assistance are now tied to the user profile and will be remembered the next time the profile is used. We've also updated One pedal drive to prevent unexpected creeping when opening the driver door or unbuckling your seatbelt.

You can now use creep settings in performance mode.

Keys

We’ve improved the response time for unlocking the car with the door handle while using a distance-capable key.

Lights

Position lights: The position lights symbol in the driver information area now activates in more scenarios.

Exterior lights: When the automatic lights mode is selected and your car is turned on and in park, the position lights and license plate lights now activate in low light conditions, while the passing beam remains off.

Fixes

This update also contains tweaks and fixes to:

Apple CarPlay: We’ve made updates to improve clarity when connecting to Apple CarPlay.

Steering wheel: Tweaks have been made to steering wheel heating to enhance predictability.

This might be trivial to some, but I wasn't really aware of it.

In countries with larger markets (like the UK, Austria, US, etc.) VolvoCars has its own local company with its own office, etc.

So if you write to e.g. Volvo Car UK Ltd (at custcare@volvocars.com), your message will be (probably) received by VolvoCars employees (or some customer care agency that VolvoCars hired).

In other countries this might not be the case. E.g. in Poland the official contact company is named as "Volvo Car Poland sp. z o.o.", but its address is the same as the address of Dom Volvo, a dealership.

This is not a one off either. In my country the official (local) VolvoCars company (likely a subsidiary?) is registered at the same address as the dealership that I bought the car from. So if I decided to complain directly to VolvoCars about some issue with the dealership (it's not yet the case, but I've read stories here with other Volvo dealerships and my country in general is not the best as far as service to customers is involved), my complaint might land directly at the dealership, without ever reaching VolvoCars itself. I mean this is not a given, but having the same street address raises suspicions.

In Slovakia they didn't even try to keep up appearances, the official company (for VolvoCars contact) is listed as "Top Auto Slovakia" and they didn't even put the Swedish VolvoCars contact info under it.

Btw. in case of my country, both the local VolvoCars office and the Swedish parent company have the same email-address, i.e. the address of the local company. They didn't even bother to publish a direct contact to the parent company. Not that I couldn't find it if I wanted to, but the intention matters.

So what I wanted to say: if you ever decide to contact VolvoCars directly, make sure that you write to the right address. Otherwise your message might end up at the dealership that you've a problem with.

I never ever enabled Trips on purpose. I don't want VolvoCars to have any legitimate reason (i.e. my permission) for keeping a record of my comings and goings. Don't take this the wrong way: of course I know that this is an illusion. They keep coordinates no matter what. I'm pretty sure there's some small print in the miles long ToS about reasons for why they "have to" do it.

However I just noticed that Trips is now enabled and it has been recording my trips since 3rd May. :o I don't think I've anything to do with it.

And I don't even see any option to make them delete my Trips data and disable the feature.

Was there any announcement (regarding Trips to be force-enabled for all) that I'm not aware of? Is Trips still disabled for others (in Europe)?

Also, if for some reason I actually did enable Trips and just don't remember (not impossible of course), there's no way to check when I've allegedly done so and I don't see a way to disable it (in the app). Perhaps there's something in the car, I'll check.

Not a fan of such surprises. :(

Just got the new version on my phone (Android).

The release notes says:

>For EX90 and ES90, you can now see additional charging statuses when charging during a trip, showing how long you need to charge before you can continue your journey and when you’re ready to get back on the road. You’ll also find a detailed lights view with an overview of your car’s lights and notifications if a light fault is detected.

Here's an image of the old (6.8.0) version's Maintenance screen:

https://preview.redd.it/68gk8ypdb6zg1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=4cf6e7fa219a7902a2657819a83066c9ecaad9da

And here're images (combined into one image, from left to right) of the new version with the Lights screen:

https://preview.redd.it/zepfi64jb6zg1.png?width=4320&format=png&auto=webp&s=d16690f96b8d0f8915441b1926c19b7cab22baa9