Mercedes-Benz is also now charging EQS owners $1,200 annually to unlock the EV flagship’s full power output. Charging owners for features vehicles were designed from the get-go to have may, in fact, be illegal in several US states but that’s still unresolved. Volvo, on the other hand, sees very little additional revenue from software upgrades until mid-decade, at the earliest. Even then, only major upgrades, such as a new self-driving mode, will cost extra.
“You don’t have to hold the steering wheel – now that’s a step change in user benefit,” Annwall added.
The executive further acknowledged the software problems Volvo has had but pointed out that “we’ve been good at correcting them fairly quickly… [and] a lot of the value is in the software, and we need to have processes in place to assure the software quality.”
