Questions regarding Telematics/Infotainment

[Entropy512]

I'm currently a 2020 Bolt owner, and while I was planning on keeping the car for at least 5 years before replacing it (I normally keep vehicles for 10+ but EVs are changing so fast that I planned for only 5-6 this time around), the ongoing 2017-2019 Bolt battery fiasco means I no longer trust GM's assumption that Made-in-Michigan Bolt packs won't eventually be found to be in the same category as Made-in-Korea packs. In the event that the market value of the vehicle crashes, I'm getting tempted to maybe trade it in earlier than I would have originally planned.

I'm wondering if the Mach-E resolves some major annoyances I have with my Bolt.
1) Everyone talks about Phone-as-a-Key issues, which honestly wouldn't bother me. Can I perform a remote start/remote precondition from a desktop web browser? NOT just from a mobile app? my.chevrolet.com is not at feature parity with the mobile app in this regard, so I can't precondition my Bolt from my desk (no cell coverage, personal devices not allowed on company wifi)
2) Similarly, is there a telematics/vehicle information API accessible to private users to facilitate home automation/etc integration? GM restricts API access to fleet customers and goes out of their way to make it extremely difficult to use the API endpoints available to the mobile app - see https://developer.gm.com/vehicle-apis and https://github.com/q39JzrRa/GM-Vehicle-API
3) While most of the time I use Android Auto, sometimes I just play music over Bluetooth (for example, when my phone's battery is really low and I want to use a USB-PD power supply to charge it quickly). Does the Mach-E's infotainment system wait for a Bluetooth device to reconnect on startup when the infotainment is set to Bluetooth, or does it switch inputs automatically like the Bolt does? If it switches inputs automatically, can an owner at least blacklist SiriusXM? GM sets up their radios to auto-switch to SXM on startup if you were using Bluetooth before in order to push SXM subscriptions (which I'm guessing they get a cut of...) - the Bolt is the only vehicle I've ever owned where it didn't auto-reconnect to Bluetooth, but it's also the first vehicle I've ever owned where Bluetooth wasn't a retrofit installed by myself...

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[macchiaz-o]

1. No.
2. Maybe. https://developer.ford.com/
3. Yes.

 

[benk016]

I'm currently a 2020 Bolt owner, and while I was planning on keeping the car for at least 5 years before replacing it (I normally keep vehicles for 10+ but EVs are changing so fast that I planned for only 5-6 this time around), the ongoing 2017-2019 Bolt battery fiasco means I no longer trust GM's assumption that Made-in-Michigan Bolt packs won't eventually be found to be in the same category as Made-in-Korea packs. In the event that the market value of the vehicle crashes, I'm getting tempted to maybe trade it in earlier than I would have originally planned.

I'm wondering if the Mach-E resolves some major annoyances I have with my Bolt.
1) Everyone talks about Phone-as-a-Key issues, which honestly wouldn't bother me. Can I perform a remote start/remote precondition from a desktop web browser? NOT just from a mobile app? my.chevrolet.com is not at feature parity with the mobile app in this regard, so I can't precondition my Bolt from my desk (no cell coverage, personal devices not allowed on company wifi)
2) Similarly, is there a telematics/vehicle information API accessible to private users to facilitate home automation/etc integration? GM restricts API access to fleet customers and goes out of their way to make it extremely difficult to use the API endpoints available to the mobile app - see https://developer.gm.com/vehicle-apis and https://github.com/q39JzrRa/GM-Vehicle-API
3) While most of the time I use Android Auto, sometimes I just play music over Bluetooth (for example, when my phone's battery is really low and I want to use a USB-PD power supply to charge it quickly). Does the Mach-E's infotainment system wait for a Bluetooth device to reconnect on startup when the infotainment is set to Bluetooth, or does it switch inputs automatically like the Bolt does? If it switches inputs automatically, can an owner at least blacklist SiriusXM? GM sets up their radios to auto-switch to SXM on startup if you were using Bluetooth before in order to push SXM subscriptions (which I'm guessing they get a cut of...) - the Bolt is the only vehicle I've ever owned where it didn't auto-reconnect to Bluetooth, but it's also the first vehicle I've ever owned where Bluetooth wasn't a retrofit installed by myself...

1. No. The Vehicle Dashboard on the website has no control capability of the car. Its just an info dashboard. You can only use the FOB or the mobile app to control the car.

2. Nothing official at this point. However, I believe I've seen users on here post that they've been able to see the info that the car is sending back to ford and there is a lot of data there you can trigger on. But again, nothing official.

3. The radio goes back to whatever you were using last.
One caveat of this is that if android auto disconnects, and reconnects, occasionally it will try to auto start playing music and the car will switch to it automatically.

 

[Entropy512]

Thanks for the information, even if some of it was somewhat disappointing. Although it kind of makes the "be responsible and wait a few years before shopping again" a bit easier.

Actually as far as "data the car is sending back to Ford": If the vehicle is connected to home WiFi, will it run all telematics data through wifi instead of cellular? (Bolt doesn't use wifi for ANYTHING except for checking for infotainment OTAs, which don't actually exist outside of a feature removal for 2017 owners... This makes preconditioning and status queries slow/unreliable in locations with solid wifi but weak cellular like my garage.)

Also, can HVAC settings be changed remotely, or is it just "precondition at last known settings" like the Bolt?

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