Toronto, Ontario — A BMW owner has discovered a new restriction imposed by the OEM: vehicle software that won’t update when the vehicle is parked on an incline.
“In ‘sentences that would make your nan’s head explode’: I can’t update my car because I live on a hill,” tweeted Clare Eliza, the owner of an electric i4 vehicle.
This tweet is accompanied by a photo of her vehicle’s screen, which instructs the driver to park the vehicle on level ground as “the road is too steep to start the installation.”
For some context to this seemingly unreasonable limitation, this restriction is explained by a former BMW software developer as a precautionary safety feature, rather than a grudge against people on hills.
“It is a safety measure related to the electronic parking brake. Wouldn’t want your car to roll down a hill in the unlikely event that the software flash of the EPB fails,” tweeted @neverpanic, a former software engineer at the titular OEM.
In an interview with Drive Tesla Canada, a BMW Canada spokesperson confirmed that there is no way for owners to override the limitation.
