BYD Atto 3 is the most affordable electric vehicle in Australia which helped it gain a decent following in Australia. One of the biggest considerations when purchasing a new vehicle is the technology inside it. In recent years owners have fallen in love with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, allowing them to leverage apps and accounts on their phone to power the entertainment and navigation in the car.
When the BYD Atto went on sale, one of the promises made was that an over-the-air update would deliver support for these phone extension platforms. The Australian importer EVDirect, initially stated in their Atto3 brochure that Apply CarPlay and Android Auto would be Available in Q3 2022.
This was later updated to be the end of 2022. In early January 2023, a recent update added support for Apple CarPlay, but this is not yet available for all customers.
The software experience for BYD owners has been rough, with early owners needing to go to a dealership to get the first installed, after which they could then leverage OTA updates.
From there, Version 1.0.1 took almost an hour to install, followed by a second update V1.0.2, delivered within the next 72 hours and took another ~30 minutes to download and install. These updates added support for Spotify and voice control where users could then command their vehicle using the ‘Hi BYD’ command to control the temperature, audio and the sunroof.
Some users have just received V1.3 as recently as 2 days ago, which does not contain CarPlay, We’re now well into 2023 and those waiting for Android Auto have not been provided a firm date for release.
The updated Atto 3 brochure on BYD’s Australian site now lists Apple CarPlay (wired) and Android Auto
(wireless) is scheduled to be available Q1 2023, Q2 2023 respectively, but given this has moved considerably in the past, it’s difficult to have confidence it will in fact be delivered on that timeline.
On a local Australian BYD owner’s group, one user reported they were offered Apple CarPlay via a USB stick and provided no release date for Android Auto.
I was at my local Eagers on Wednesday. Apple Carplay will be released in an OTA update in batches from 9 January. It was offered to me from a USB stick, but I declined.
Android Auto will follow, but there is no release date.
Frustrated by the long wait, some users are taking to exploring side-loading software onto their cars finding the .APK files online and a micro-USB port that allows debugging. I’d strongly recommend you steer away from this as this has the potential to leave you unsupported from BYD in the event you get the actual update in the future.
Apple carplay is meant to be installed as an OTA by the end of January 2023 with Android Auto to follow a month later.
What’s your source for that info? The only published, updated date on their site is in the brochure that places the timeline as Q1 2023.