- 3 hours ago
How well does Google’s car-focused Android system work in the Volvo EX30? This hands-on infotainment walkthrough explores Google Maps, personal account integration, apps and EV route planning, including how the system handles charging stops and charger availability.
Marek also looks at the EX30’s touchscreen controls, driver profiles, seat and mirror settings, driving options, and charging-current limit. The review highlights useful features alongside frustrations, from limited local charging-network support to functions that take too many taps. A practical Volvo EX30 technology review for anyone researching Android Automotive, electric-car navigation, Google built-in infotainment, or EV charging-route planning. Discover what the system does well—and where its everyday usability could improve.
Marek also looks at the EX30’s touchscreen controls, driver profiles, seat and mirror settings, driving options, and charging-current limit. The review highlights useful features alongside frustrations, from limited local charging-network support to functions that take too many taps. A practical Volvo EX30 technology review for anyone researching Android Automotive, electric-car navigation, Google built-in infotainment, or EV charging-route planning. Discover what the system does well—and where its everyday usability could improve.
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00I guess most of us use Google Maps or even Android Auto to navigate around the
00:06cities so wouldn't it be nice if we had a Google based infotainment system sorry
00:16I don't understand hmm I think I have my answer
00:36hello and welcome to a walkthrough video about Android automotive it's Android automotive
00:49in a Volvo EX30 it's actually my second attempt at at an Android automotive video because I recorded
00:58one in the Renault Scenic e-tech which I will leave for the channel members to review but I don't
01:10think
01:10it deserves to be published to a wider audience because it's not the fullest of the Android
01:19automotive experiences let's say so let's talk about Android automotive what it is and why would
01:27you want it it is an infotainment system which is heavily based on Google so you log in with your
01:36Google account and then you have access to your destinations to your calendar contacts etc etc
01:45actually contacts contacts and whatever you have in your calendar so it's easier to input or find
01:54certain certain destinations because the car the system already knows where you might be going
02:01this is something car makers have been trying to implement in their systems for a while but
02:09it never really took off because you change cars maybe every couple of years maybe every couple of
02:17months if that's your game why not so the car never had a chance to learn meanwhile Google probably knows
02:24enough about you to know where your home is where your next destination is gonna be and where are your
02:31common destination frequent destinations so to speak so it's always easier to find certain things and
02:37as far as I'm concerned this bit works quite well now because this is Google and Google has some of
02:46the best
02:46maps out there you would also expect that in an electric car the system is going to be great at
02:54finding
02:55charging stations and this one here for some reason is different to that in the in the Renault Megane or
03:05was the
03:06brand Renault Scenic sorry Renault Scenic E-Tech so for example I am actually parked next to a charging station
03:12and this charging station actually appears on the screen this is good however if I scroll
03:25or move to here there's another charging station here that's good but I know there's another charging
03:33station right here at this petrol station but I see it only after zooming in quiet a lot why isn't
03:43this
03:45displayed right there when I just swipe towards it it just says petrol station there is another greenway
03:52station next to here another electric station but this one is inside a dealership so it might not be as
03:58convenient or accessible for everyone also this is a relatively slow one but slow is not a problem
04:04because what I can do is go to here charging stations and I can filter by let's say charging speed
04:14power so at least 50 kilowatts at least 150 at least 350 I can choose the plug type which also
04:26makes sense
04:26and payment payment would work well if I could for example choose this greenway here but I can't there is
04:35something called Volvo public charging service don't know what it is but the other ones may be available
04:45somewhere in Western Europe they say they are common here in Poland plug surfing mmm not really shell recharge
04:53okay main go Autostrom I don't think so charge map pass never heard of it be charge never heard of
05:01it blink network never
05:03chargeable and so on the only one I know from this list is I unity there is no greenway which
05:11is I think the
05:12leader on the polish market there is no yellow city there is no orland there is no lot of there
05:16is no tower on there is
05:17no there is nothing here from the polish from the polish list so I'm surprised that Google hasn't included it
05:29at
05:30least some of the charging stations that we have in Poland now if I were to plan a route say
05:38to another town
05:41somewhere where I know it's going to be okay let's just this is going to be a far one
05:46because this is like 360 kilometers from where I am right now and okay so obviously I won't make it
05:54because I have only 40 percent of charge so it says that I should charge somewhere along the way
06:03now I am next to a charger which is currently occupied and
06:12it doesn't really say that I should use it but I'm not sure if it knows it's occupied I will
06:18check
06:18in a moment it says I should go to a charging station somewhere here yes there is one and charge
06:27there
06:27for 24 minutes and then okay okay okay and then I should charge somewhere along the way let me see
06:35review those stops okay so that one is a power dot again not on the list and not supported by
06:43the card I
06:43have and the other one is also a power dot again not supported by the card I have and finally
06:54yeah I'll get
06:54there with a 10 percent state of charge now there is no way to set my preferred desired state of
07:02charge
07:02at the destination which by now should be kind of standard because if I know that there is no charger
07:13at my destination or I don't have time to charge at my destination I might want to have a set
07:20amount of
07:21charge at the destination and charge more accordingly along the way so the system should know along the way
07:28and recalculate how much I should charge along the way this one doesn't do that for some reason
07:35um let me just uh cancel this um also I have no influence over the charging networks it chooses here
07:46as I as I said uh I wanted to check something and bring never mind um so this is the
07:55route planning
07:55which is probably the crucial bit in a in an electric car it works so so uh let me see
08:05oh yeah I wanted
08:05to see if it knows that this charger is occupied currently by two cars actually
08:13uh okay it tells me it's occupied so at least it knows this much so that's good
08:22other features of android automotive so I have apps there are some apps pre-installed I can get more apps
08:32from the app store so for example I got pocket casts now pocket casts I had to replace google podcasts
08:40because google killed google podcasts brilliant guys I'm not going to use youtube music because it sucks
08:46uh so I used pocket casts now pocket casts didn't work at all in android automotive in reno
08:55cynic e-tech I had to switch to android auto to use it this car doesn't have android auto
09:03and that's good because I don't have to go back and forth between the systems pocket casts
09:09had to I have to I had to like log in again into my google account for it to work
09:16to um to download all my
09:19settings and podcasts from the cloud same thing with youtube if I go to youtube I have to log in
09:26which means typing in my email address my password which is very long and very difficult and then I have
09:36to
09:37um do the two-step uh authentication on my phone which makes all this quite cumbersome if I'm logged in
09:45here with my google account theoretically it should all work although if I'm logged in here with my google
09:52account other people can still use the car and perhaps I don't want them in my uh in my youtube
09:57history
09:59but then I have profiles and yeah profiles are needed to set the seat memory function
10:09so for example um if I want okay seats I can do with a with a button on the seat
10:16and seat and that's
10:17good but if I want to change the mirror position for example I have to go into the settings here
10:22I have
10:22to click mirrors and then we're gonna do you know it looks familiar if you've ever set your mirrors in
10:30a tesla doesn't it so now if I close it it's gonna ask me if I want to save this
10:35position no I don't
10:36want to save it I want to restore so if someone using my profile changed my position like for example
10:43my partner Anna she will usually leave the seat like that and exit the car now the way for me
10:55to
10:56actually get back to my position is move the seat slightly wait for the prompt if I want to restore
11:05click restore and then the seat goes back to my original position so I have to lean through the door
11:12and
11:13reach the screen and do the whole thing now why couldn't this be a button is it so expensive
11:22but this is volvo's choice by the way this car is on the scalable environmental architecture or
11:32something like that c2 platform which is gilis platform so the ex30 is not the only car on this
11:39platform we have also smart hashtag one hashtag three and zeeker x on the same platform so these
11:47cars seem to have less minimalist cockpits and I would imagine they have a bit more buttons but
11:53volvo chose the buttonless way so to speak or very minimalist way again this is all very nice
12:02just not very convenient if you've seen my review of the mini OS 9 infotainment system you'll remember
12:11that I praised mini for giving me access to certain features by pressing the icons these lights wipers
12:21nothing happens I have to go from the main screen to the car to the settings and then I can
12:31do something
12:32about uh about various uh various functions or I can say turn it off oh I can't turn it off
12:42from here
12:43no I can only turn it off from here completely okay so that's uh that's another that's another thing
12:49similar lights I have to go here and from lights I can choose what else I want to what else
12:53I want to
12:54do so this could have been done better but it's it just it just hasn't been if I want to
13:01adjust the
13:02volume I have to click the screen if I want to adjust the AC I have to click the screen
13:09and then I get
13:10additional functions so could have been done better glovebox is always easy to reach the one thing I'm not
13:18really going to use um car settings let's just review those quickly so here are the basic access settings
13:28and that's fine then we have car status so for example when when I'm parked I can see my energy
13:36consumption but if I'm driving I have to click into this menu here to actually see what's uh what's
13:44happening the current trip is actually from charge from last charge but you can set it after each trip
13:51if that's your uh that's your thing you can review uh your consumption of the last 50 or 100 kilometers
14:04uh then we have more advanced settings so you have driving basically every time you
14:11go out on a motorway and you start using uh adaptive cruise control you have to set the time interval
14:19to
14:19vehicle ahead to whatever you want by default it's long long means a truck can cut in front of you
14:26short means only polish drivers will cut in in front of you so I have to switch it to short
14:33uh steering
14:35feel I'd say it's fine even if in its soft setting one pedal driving it's one and a half pedal
14:44driving
14:44you're not gonna forget about the brake like in some cars it's more mostly for city driving
14:52speed warnings you can switch it off and you can also assign it to a configurable button on the steering
15:00wheel which I have we'll get to those in a moment most safety features are okay-ish but not what
15:11I would
15:11expect from Volvo I've seen better on more grown-up Volvo models so to speak then we have the controls
15:21so that's everything else screen brightness light settings
15:33neutral ambience color okay right or I can have it matching the matching the mode
15:44um what else um here is somewhere oh yeah the customizable button you can turn it to turn off
15:51isa you can set it to one pedal driving or the screen view screen view is basically this stuff here
15:59I mean really not something I would need so I just uh I just keep it uh set to disabling
16:08isa
16:10okay and from here we can go into profiles and in the profile you can set someone you can add
16:17accounts
16:18for other drivers or you can assign them to keys
16:24again not something I would I would really do because for insurance reasons we usually use one key
16:32and the other one is locked in the safe because if the car gets
16:35stolen the insurance company wants two keys and if the car if you've been carjacked again you want to
16:45show at least one key it's just an insurance thing so we usually carry one key so assigning
16:51profiles to the key doesn't work for us it would work if we could assign it to an app however
16:57the app
16:58isn't very good um let me see if I can launch it because sometimes it crashes
17:12okay so
17:16okay so now it's showing me that the car is in use so I can't really show you anything I'll
17:20just show you
17:21the cutaways then basically it's good for charging to show you that you're charging and that's it but
17:30there is no driver profile in the app and as far as I can tell opening is very slow and
17:37there is no way
17:38to start the car without the actual key so again not brilliant not quite as seamless as you would get
17:47in Tesla for example but a lot of this does look like Tesla okay um so I think this oh
17:56yeah one more
17:56thing I will mention um when I was recording the um the reno scenic e-tech android automotive video I
18:07was actually parked and charging at the station next to next to us here and I had to come here
18:13rather than
18:14charge at home because it didn't have a limit charging current setting so the scenic e-tech
18:22would take 22 kilowatts unfortunately my house can only provide 11 kilowatts which would be okay
18:28but my wall box can spit out 22 kilowatts and there is no way to set the limiter on the
18:35wall box so
18:36it would trip the circuit breakers which is what's what's supposed to happen when there is too much
18:45too high too high a power draw um but you couldn't set the limit within the car here you can
18:52set it
18:53within the car which could be useful when you're for example at some dodgy charging spot at a camping site
19:01for example you don't want to be a nuisance to anyone you just want to set the lowest current
19:05possible and kind of trickle charge rather than rather than do a blackout in the area so it's good
19:14that it has that it has that other than that the volvo ex30 is a pleasant enough car to drive
19:22the review
19:23uh is either already on the channel members only or will be there soon and channel members get to
19:32watch early and without ads so i suggest you become a channel member and support me for something like
19:40whatever 50 cents or one euro a month you'll get access to the entire backlog catalog and you will get
19:47to see certain reviews weeks or even months ahead of everyone else so i hope that's a perk sufficient
19:55for you to consider becoming a channel member thanks for watching press the subscribe button bell
20:03icon click clickety click and all that thanks i'll see you in the next one if you like my sarcastic
20:11down to earth and possibly mildly amusing car reviews join me every friday at 3 pm central european time
20:18and don't forget to subscribe and like this video as it helps me with the youtube algorithm
20:23thanks for watching and i will see you in the next one