No remote app in Canada??

[babakp]

So, picked up my factory order today. Very pleasant experience with the salesperson, a wonderful young man and first impressions with the car are good.

A couple of annoyances to note anyway...

- an app to lock/unlock, start climate control, see location of car and check charge status doesn't exist in Canada!! Every other EV I know of has it and I so took it for granted that it never occurred to me to ask when ordering. Especially annoying since I factory ordered with all options, literally fully loaded!! To add insult to injury, it seems like the US owners aren't having such a good time with car net either!!

- no PDF owner manual?? I googled etc, with no luck. Will call their head office tomorrow and hassle them if it really doesn't exist. 350 page paper manual!!

- A-pillar trim is faulty with seams showing at the bottom and top not sitting flush with scratches... one would expect 1600$ PDI is to catch at least such visible ite,s.. I literally noticed it less than a block out of the dealership.!

That app thing really annoys me with a state of the art electric car!!

Details that tarnish an otherwise amazing car and I've researched and rented/borrowed all of them

 

[miimura]

I think the problem is that VW Canada doesn't have any telematics on any of their cars, so they could not justify setting it up for the small volume of e-Golf cars that they will have this year. VW America is pushing CarNet with all their cars, so the e-Golf is not much additional effort.

 

[forbin404]

I think it really is because the VW USA cars are based on Verizon.

Verizon isn't in Canada and most likely the cars were rolled out before the agreements were finalized.

Hence, I believe the CDMA technology is in there, but no carrier was contracted.

 

[miimura]

I'm pretty sure the telematics module is completely different between US and EU cars, so Canada would have to choose between those and set up contracts just for those few cars. Somebody probably made the executive decision it wasn't worth it. It's lame that they're the only EV in Canada that doesn't have it, but that's just how it is for now.

 

[babakp]

The 2017 e-golf brochure from VW Canada clearly advertises the telematics as standard equi-ment. I had my salesperson send an official inquiry for a response.

 

[johnnylingo]

check charge status doesn't exist in Canada!!

If it's any consolation mine's been broken for 1-2 weeks. I do a manual refresh, and it just says "Updating..." at the top.

For locking/unlocking, the old App did it but the new version does not. VW hasn't announced when or if this feature will be brought back.

Also, I found the setting of charge schedules to be confusing and glitchy. Having to not deal with it is one of the reasons I invested in an EVSE

 

[ScottyHall]

The 2017 e-golf brochure from VW Canada clearly advertises the telematics as standard equi-ment. I had my salesperson send an official inquiry for a response.

Nowhere does the word "telematics" or "Car-Net" appear in the brochure or the specs.

Media Control is not the same thing. That is an app for pushing destinations to the headunit, making shared playlists, supervising tablet video playback (limited by DRM), and playing audio over Wi-Fi.

 

[babakp]

You are right. I must have mistakenly seen a US brochure. That said, e-golf is the only ev without a remote app! The Volt/bolt is quite good.
Hopefully they will uncripple the Canadian model as the tech is built in.
I’m thinking of writing to vw Canada and give it a nudge

 

[ScottyHall]

It's not built into the Canadian car. Car-Net runs on 3G anyway, which will sunset sometime in 2019-2020 for all cell networks in North America. It would stop working then anyway.

Hyundai Ioniq doesn't have an "app" either. Neither did Kia Soul EV at launch.

If you want a solution, look into FleetCarma. The product is not cheap though.

 

[babakp]

I may be mistaken but my information is that the cdma cell module exists in canadian cars similar to the US spec models but vw Canada did not implement the infrastructure.

 

[ScottyHall]

Take it on good authority that that is not the case. If you pop the cover where the three-button assembly would otherwise be (aft of the sunglasses holder), you will see that there is nothing there.

 

[babakp]

Take it on good authority that that is not the case. If you pop the cover where the three-button assembly would otherwise be (aft of the sunglasses holder), you will see that there is nothing there.

Scheisse!!

 

[forbin404]

I may be mistaken but my information is that the cdma cell module exists in canadian cars similar to the US spec models but vw Canada did not implement the infrastructure.

Translation, Verizon uses CDMA and Canada discontinued it...so no App for Canada...for now.