The 'Fix It In Post' Era Has Arrived For Your Car

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🌟 Editor's Note

Welcome to Route Zero! If you’re reading for the first time, see what we’re all about here.

This Week’s Big Charge

🛻  The ‘Software-Defined Vehicle’ Era Means You Sell The Car First, And Fix The Bugs Later

When I’m not writing about cars, I’m probably watching movies. As someone born in the 1980s, I have a particular fondness for the era of films that relied on practical effects the most. You know: real sets, real props, makeups, pyrotechnics and not just CGI for everything. (The first Terminator movie? They invented half that stuff as they were doing it.) And at some point in the last 20 years, CGI went from magical to making every movie look like a video game.

This is, in part, because of a reliance on the “fix it in post” model for modern filmmaking. If you can’t make something happen right during filming, you make changes in post-production with CGI—to varying degrees of success.

I bring this up here because “fix it in post” may become the norm for the software-defined vehicle era. (Find a longer explanation of that here.)

If electric vehicles work more like giant smartphones, running off a central operating system with apps and software updates, your next new car should get better and add new features over time.

But it may also arrive feeling incomplete. And the Volvo EX90, which starts at $81,290, seems to be the modern poster child for fixing things in post.

🛠️ Here’s what we know:

• The EX90 is meant to be Volvo’s electric luxury flagship SUV, but a year after its release, customers are complaining of constant software bugs and a lack of features they paid for.

• Consumer Reports bought one, and their experience has been scarier than any horror movie. The center screen goes blank, safety alerts trigger false alarms, warning lights appear constantly, and when the “Starting Up: Your Volvo is getting ready” screen is displayed, the vehicle cannot be driven for up to five minutes.

• Owners are frustrated, too. The EX90’s Reddit community is filled with complaints about climate control shutdowns, “digital keys” not working and more. A wireless software update (1.3.18) was supposed to fix many of these issues, but drivers say it hasn’t.

• The car’s LIDAR setup, meant to enable autonomous driving assistance features, currently doesn’t function at all.

• It’s a surprising amount of software problems for a new car from a big brand—some of which make it undrivable.

• One owner is suing Volvo Cars Canada and his dealership after continual headaches from his $110,000 luxury SUV, as we reported on InsideEVs this week.

📊 More Context:

• Software has bedeviled most automakers, from startups like Rivian and Lucid to traditional ones like General Motors and Volkswagen. These bugs have led to product delays (the EX90, too, was a year late) and even turnover in the executive ranks.

• This started with Tesla, which pioneered over-the-air software updates, but it’s becoming the industry norm.

• Car companies want to offer advanced features like in-car apps (ranging from Spotify integration to the dreaded Microsoft Teams) to differentiate themselves from the competition.

• This is big business if they can get you to pay for it. A 2023 report from Boston Consulting Group projected subscription features would mean $250 billion in industry-wide revenue by 2030. (The current take is just a fraction of that, however.)

• Software updates are key to this—but it can mean you end up buying a car that doesn’t feel “finished” yet.

• So now the question is: will car shoppers warm up to this model?

🧠 My Take:

• This is a new world. Since forever, the car you buy is what you have for years, unless you modify it. Now it’s a platform for more features to come—provided you pay up.

• But nobody depends on a bad-looking summer blockbuster (or a buggy video game) to get their kids to school on time. Who wants to put up with these glitches on a six-figure car?

• To be fair, automakers do get this stuff dialed in… eventually.

• General Motors’ modern EVs had existential bugs early on that we don’t see anymore. But some fixes take longer than others.

• Do people even want this stuff? A lot of the demand we see is for relatively old-school features—and just affordable prices.

• Above all, the “software-defined vehicle” may end up a tough sell to most people. And nobody wants a car that has to be fixed in post.

📰 More Stories That Matter

• Everyone’s talking about Tesla’s lackluster second-quarter results. While still profitable, declining new car sales (in part over the antics of CEO Elon Musk) brought revenue down 12% year-over-year.

• Meanwhile, GM had a much better result. Its brands sold 46,280 EVs; that’s up from 31,886 in the first quarter of 2025, and up a whopping 111% in the same period last year.

• The big winner? Cadillac, as Kevin Williams reports at InsideEVs. “A whopping 75% of Lyriq buyers and 80% of Optiq buyers are conquests from other brands.” In the auto industry, that’s when you steal customers from other brands, and it’s what you want.

• Europe’s EV market, in particular, really seems to be moving on from Tesla.

• A study by Cinch, the United Kingdom’s biggest online used car retailer, says that internet searches for BYD are up 236% this quarter. Clearly, interest in the Chinese EV giant is rising in the West.

• BMW keeps investing in battery technology. This time, its BMW i Ventures VC fund is putting $11 million into California-based Estes Energy Solutions to help develop “its chemistry-agnostic battery pack platform and establish domestic manufacturing capacity.”

• Electric aerial taxi startup Joby Aviation, which has backing from Toyota and other notable investors, is building up its California factory as it aims for commercial flights in early 2026.

🔍 On My Radar

• One of the biggest stories of the year will be the success or failure of the updated Tesla Model Y. I’m driving one right now; it’s actually an outstanding EV.

• Normally, it should have the juice to keep its title as the world’s best-selling car. But it’s falling behind in other areas like ultra-fast-charging and vehicle-to-load capability, and Musk’s antics have turned off a lot of buyers.

• Lagging Model Y sales could be blamed on people waiting for the new one to arrive. But it’s here now. If Q3 brings more bad sales news, that will be very telling.

• Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz has already canceled production of its unpopular EQ electric cars in America, right as the EV tax credits come to an end. Who’s next to axe EV plans amid all this uncertainty?

• And a Cars.com survey reports that around 50% of people buy EVs because of the tax credit.

• I’m as optimistic as I was a week ago, but the market is in for some shocks.

🔌 Charging News

• Rivian’s charging network, the Adventure Network, opened its first Charging Outpost on the East Coast in the Hamptons. It features six fast chargers, including a trailer-friendly pull-through charger, and bathrooms. Imagine that!

• Rivian is also adding more Tesla-style NACS chargers from now on.

• Two more automakers added Tesla Supercharger access this week: Honda (including Acura) and Lucid Motors. Owners will need a manufacturer-approved adapter for now, but will gain access to more than 23,500 Tesla fast-chargers in the U.S.

• BP Pulse’s LAX-adjacent, 48-stall charging hub had its ribbon-cutting this week and will open to the public “soon.”

• The Tesla Diner is open in Los Angeles too, serving hamburgers, hot dogs and all-day breakfast to go with its 80 fast-charging stalls. (Also, here’s the full menu.)

• Great news, New York. If you’re in Flushing, Queens, you can access the state’s biggest charging site yet: 424 Level 2 chargers (!!!) in a mixed-use apartment complex garage, thanks to NewTech Energy.

• Industrial energy giant Eaton, which is a partner of ChargePoint, has acquired Resilient Power Systems Inc.: “A U.S.-based firm known for cutting-edge solid-state transformer technology used in high-power direct current (DC) systems.” (Benzinga)

🤖 Autonomy News

• General Motors says that its excellent Super Cruise highway hands-off driving assistance system is now on more than 500,000 vehicles—an increase of over 100% compared to the same period last year.

• Meanwhile, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving marketing has it in hot water in California. A lawsuit accusing Tesla of misleading consumers about its self-driving capabilities could see its sales and manufacturing operations suspended for 30 days. (But I’d be shocked if that actually happened.)

• Tesla has bigger problems: according to new survey data, its Robotaxi program “continues to encounter enormous skepticism from consumers.” Yet that’s what Musk has pinned the company’s future on.

• Meanwhile, Musk is shrugging off the bad news. He claimed half the population will have access to them by this year’s end—quite a leap from a small area of Austin right now—and Tesla’s autonomous technology will make up for “a few rough quarters” by mid-2026.

• Veterans from Google’s Waymo have launched Bedrock Robotics, a startup aimed at automating a less risky space than city streets: construction sites. (TechCrunch)

📤️ Spread the Charge

If this newsletter helped you make sense of what matters in e-mobility, forward it to a friend or coworker. And tell them to subscribe here.

❓️ How’s My Driving?

Route Zero remains a work in progress! What do you think of the format and content so far? This is a work in progress, so all feedback is welcome. Send me your thoughts anytime.

💡 Did You Know? The first highway-legal production car to use rechargeable lithium-ion batteries was actually the Tesla Roadster. Certainly, EVs had been around before that, but they used now-archaic lead-acid batteries instead.

Until next time,

—Patrick George

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