This Is Why BMWs Won’t Do Over-The-Air Software Updates On Steep Hills (As Weird As That Sounds)

A few days ago, on the little-discussed internet-based idle thought broadcasting system run by a reclusive billionaire known as Twitter, there appeared a picture of a BMW i4’s center-stack screen. The screen was filled with text under the heading of REMOTE SOFTWARE UPGRADE, indicating that some sort of over-the-air update was happening, but below the heading and version information was a really peculiar error message, stating that “The road is too steep to start the installation.” What? The steepness of the road is too great to install software? Are there floppy disks that might slide out? Will all those ones and zeroes pool at one end of the car if it’s too tilted? What’s going on here? This is one of those peculiar things where I knew I couldn’t rest until I knew what the hell was behind this, so I reached out to BMW for answers. And now, I can free you from the tyranny of bafflement, too.

First, let’s look at the tweet that started all this:

In ‘sentences that would make your nan’s head explode’: I can’t update my car because I live on a hill pic.twitter.com/X0Jte5QYdG

— Clare Eliza (@clare_eliza) January 29, 2023

So, Clare there owns a BMW i4, and lives in the UK, seemingly on a steep hill. Clare captioned this with “sentences that would make your nan’s head explode,” and I think we can include most rational people who live in our current reality along with Clare’s nan there, because the idea that a computer can’t update its software because it’s on a hill makes no logical sense, at least based on most people’s experiences with computers and hills.

Clearly, there’s something up here, which is why I asked BMW. Happily, they had an answer, from BMW’s product and technology spokesperson:

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Here’s the best we can do to answer your questions regarding the i4:

• The vehicle needs to be in an active remote software upgrade (RSU) campaign
• The download needs to be completed (fully automatically via vehicle SIM or via BMW Connected App, also fully automatically when correctly setup (see note below))
• Sufficient battery charging level
• Vehicle not parked on an incline
• Transmission must be in Park
• Engine must be off

The vehicle has all sorts of sensors (pitch, yaw, lateral and longitudinal acceleration and deceleration, etc.) that allow it to understand its orientation, so it knows when it’s on an incline. It’s likely a catchall, every-worst-case-no-matter-how-unlikely scenario safety precaution to try to prevent any chance of the vehicle moving should the programming be interrupted or go wrong.

Ohhhhhhh, I see. BMW is really just being prudent here, covering their ass, and, you know what? That’s probably a good idea. Software is complex, especially when it comes to what’s running in modern cars, and there are thousands and thousands of lines of code, and a bug anywhere in there could possibly have some very unforeseen consequences, which in an extreme case could potentially include something like, say, releasing the parking brake or disengaging the car from park or some other combination of causes that ends up with a shiny new electric car rolling down a hill and straight into a puppy farm or something.

So, it’s not some strange technical issue, it’s not that the antennae can only receive error-free data from some specific angles, it’s not that there are motion-sensitive hard drive platters, it’s just that BMW is playing it safe and making sure that some future bit of errant code won’t cause too much trouble. A bricked car sucks, of course, but a bricked car rolling down a hill into an intersection would suck so much more.

Eliminating as many variables and points of failure makes sense. Even if it may mean that steep-living people like Clare there have to move their cars somewhere to be updated. Or, maybe jack up the low end? I wonder if that would work?