Over-the-air updates for modern cars can make for a much better ownership experience. In many cases, a car can receive updates that improve features or install all new ones. In the case of the BMW i4 though, it’ll need to be on flat ground if owners want to take advantage of those updates. Guess how one owner found out.
OTA updates usually carry with them all sorts of requirements. For example, BMW specifically requires that a car have the software for the update completely downloaded, the car has to have enough battery for the update completely, it must be in park, and if it has an engine, the engine has to be shut off. What shocked BMW owner Clare Eliza was when she received the following message on her i4.
“The road is too steep to start the installation. Please park the vehicle on level ground.” That inspired a few questions. Firstly, how does the car know that it isn’t on level ground? And why on earth does parking on an incline have to do with updating ones and zeros in a software program?
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A BMW spokesperson told The Drive “The vehicle has all sorts of sensors (pitch, yaw, lateral and longitudinal acceleration and deceleration, etc.) that allow it to understand its orientation, so it knows when it’s on an incline… It’s likely a catchall, every-worst-case-no-matter-how-unlikely scenario safety precaution to try to prevent any chance of the vehicle moving should the programming be interrupted or go wrong.”
In short, BMW doesn’t want to risk a case where, during an update, the parking brake is released accidentally, even if that’s incredibly unlikely. Just imagine a scenario where a number of BMWs rolled into all sorts of things after a widespread OTA one day. The press would be far worse than it could ever be for something so innocuous as this.
For now, BMW owners will just have to find a flat space to park in if they want their updates. It’s inconvenient but we’d argue that it’s better than not getting updates altogether. So long as it’s an update that doesn’t have major bugs like bricking the car itself.