Buying a new BMW? It might come without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto support – at least at first.
According to a report by Automotive News Europe (via 9to5Google), certain new BMW models are being shipped without support for Apple and Google’s auto services.
BMW confirmed the report and told the outlet that the issue stems from the ongoing chip shortage that’s hit the automotive industry pretty hard in the past year or so. BMW couldn’t source a certain chip for its vehicle, so it had to switch to a different chip, which doesn’t support CarPlay and Android Auto.
The good news is that the functionality will be enabled eventually, following a software update. Said update is coming “by the end of June at the latest,” said the company.
It appears that BMW models manufactured in the first four months of 2022 were affected. To check if your car has this issue, check if it has the string “6P1” in its production code. Forum posts indicate that affected models were shipped to a number of countries, including the U.S. and Europe.
BMW is far from the only automaker that had to resort to shipping cars without certain features in order to get them out on time. Tesla, for example, cut a redundant steering component from its cars due to a chip shortage, while Ford and Volvo shipped some models without certain safety features. It’s not even the first time BMW has done it, either: The company shipped some models without touchscreen functionality last year, also due to chip shortage.
