Something happened to cars while nobody was paying attention.
They became software products.
Not entirely, obviously. There's still steel and rubber and physics. But the experience of owning a modern EV — the useful bits, the frustrating bits, the bits that genuinely surprise you — is increasingly determined by code rather than engineering. Features appear overnight. Behaviours change. Things you didn't know your car could do suddenly appear on a screen you've been staring at for months.
I've owned four EVs over six years and the shift has been dramatic even in that relatively short time. My Kia Soul EV was essentially a normal car with an electric motor, this was new in 2016. My Tesla’s and EV5 are closer to a connected device that also happens to transport me across Cornwall. That is a lot of change in 4 years of auto technology!
Here's what that actually means in practice.
OVER THE AIR UPDATES — THE FEATURE NOBODY TALKS ABOUT ENOUGH
Petrol cars don't get better after you buy them. The engine you drove off the forecourt is the engine you'll have in ten years. The software, if there is any, is frozen at whatever version shipped from the factory.
Modern EVs work completely differently. OTA (over the air) updates — software changes delivered wirelessly to your car, usually overnight while it's charging — mean your vehicle can genuinely improve over time. New features, refined behaviours, bug fixes, performance tweaks. All without a dealer visit, all without any effort on your part.
In my years of owning Tesla’s I've received too many updates to count, some almost unnoticeable but some, so significant that it appears everything had changed. They arrived silently overnight, the car rebooted itself, and in the morning sometimes it was like a brand new car. I didn't request them. I didn't schedule them. They just happened.
That's a genuinely remarkable thing when you stop and think about it. A car that gets incrementally better while you sleep.
I've had no unwelcome surprises from updates so far — no features removed, nothing changed that frustrated me. I would love to hear from anyone who has had a negative experience with OTA software updates.
SCHEDULED CHARGING AND TARIFF INTEGRATION
This one is quietly one of the most valuable software features in the entire EV ownership experience — and most people considering an EV have never heard of it.
As I mentioned in Issue 4, I'm on Octopus Intelligent — an EV specific overnight electricity tariff that drops to around 7p to 8p per kWh between 11pm and 5am. The difference between that rate and the standard daytime rate of around 24p is significant over the course of a year.
But here's where the software earns its keep. The EV5 integrates directly with scheduled charging. I plug in when I get home — whenever that is, regardless of the time. The car does nothing. Then at 11:30pm it starts charging automatically, runs through the cheap rate window, and stops at whatever charge level I've set as my target. By morning I have a full battery charged almost entirely at the overnight rate.
I set this up once. I have not thought about it since. It just works, every night, silently, saving me money while I sleep.
For anyone considering an EV and wondering whether the tariff savings are real — they are, and the scheduled charging software is what makes them effortless.
REMOTE CLIMATE PRE-CONDITIONING
Cornwall in winter is not dramatic by northern standards, but it's damp, it's cold, and a frosted windscreen at 7am on a narrow lane with cars behind you is nobody's idea of a good start to the day.
Remote pre-conditioning via the cars app lets me warm the cabin and clear the windscreen before I leave the house — while the car is still plugged in, so it's drawing from the grid rather than the battery. I press a button from the kitchen while I'm making coffee. By the time I've got my jacket on, the car is warm.
This sounds like a luxury. In practice it feels like a fundamental quality of life improvement that I genuinely miss when I don’t have it. In a petrol or diesel car you either sit in a cold car or leave it running unattended, which is illegal and a gift to opportunistic thieves. The EV approach is better in every respect.
The Kia app takes slightly longer to connect and execute than the Tesla app — there's a noticeable delay between pressing the button and the car responding that occasionally makes you wonder if it worked. But it always does. A minor frustration in an otherwise excellent feature.
NAVIGATION AND ROUTE PLANNING
EV navigation is fundamentally different from petrol car navigation and it took me a while to appreciate why that matters.
A petrol sat nav finds the fastest route. An EV sat nav needs to find a route that accounts for your current battery level, the energy consumption of different road types, the location and speed of charging stops, and the optimal battery level to arrive at each charger. It's a significantly more complex problem.
The EV5's built in navigation handles this competently. Input a destination beyond your current range and it automatically plans charging stops, routes you to compatible chargers, and estimates your arrival battery level at each point. It's not perfect — it occasionally suggests charging stops that feel slightly earlier than necessary — but it's honest and it works.
What it does that petrol navigation never could is pre-condition the battery on the way to a planned charging stop. Rapid charging works best when the battery is at optimal temperature. The car warms or cools the battery automatically as you approach the charger so you're charging at maximum speed the moment you arrive rather than waiting for the battery to reach temperature. That saves real time on longer journeys.
Compared to Tesla's navigation — which remains the gold standard in this area, deeply integrated with the Supercharger network and almost eerily accurate — the EV5 is very good but not quite at that level. Fair enough. Almost nobody else is.
PET MODE — A FEATURE I USE OFTEN
I'll admit, I love this one and it is genuinely useful. During the week I spend far too many hours working or travelling but at the weekend, my dog is with me almost all of the time, that occasionally means leaving her alone in the car sometimes.
Pet Mode — available on the Tesla’s and EV5 — keeps the cabin at a set temperature when the car is parked and you've stepped away, with a message displayed on the screen informing any concerned passers-by that the occupant is comfortable and the owner will return shortly.
For anyone who has ever left a dog in a car on a mild day and returned to find someone peering anxiously through the window, this feature is quietly transformative. The car maintains a comfortable temperature — heating or cooling as needed — powered by the battery, with the display reassuring anyone who notices.
It's a small thing in the grand scheme of automotive engineering. But it's the kind of thoughtful, specific, real-world feature that could only exist in a software-defined EV. No petrol car could offer it safely. No manufacturer without an over the air update capability could add it after launch.
My dog has no opinion on it. I think it's brilliant.
THE HONEST SUMMARY
After four EVs and six years, my view on EV software is mostly positive — and increasingly so. The features that genuinely add value to daily life have expanded dramatically. Scheduled charging, remote pre-conditioning, over the air improvements, EV-aware navigation, and genuinely thoughtful additions like Pet Mode represent a category of ownership experience that petrol cars simply cannot replicate.
The frustrations are real but minor. App connectivity delays. Occasional navigation conservatism. The background awareness that a software update could theoretically change something you rely on.
On balance the software is now one of the strongest arguments for EV ownership — not the range, not the running costs, not the environmental case. The fact that your car quietly improves while you sleep is something that, once you've experienced it, makes the alternative feel oddly static.
There are so many different apps as part of the cars software now depending on your make and model. Many now have your entertainment to keep you going while your car charges or your wife is shopping, YouTube, Netflix, Games, and many more.
Matt
Charging Up
chargingup.uk
P.S. Does your EV have a feature that surprised you — something you didn't expect and now can't imagine being without? Hit reply and tell me. Pet Mode came out of nowhere for me. I'd love to know what yours is.