So I just tried to unlock my car in my garage. Neither KeyFobs worked. Seems dead. The car has been locked and charging for the last 4 days.
I took the key apart so I could unlock the door. Car completely dead.
Any thoughts??

 

Yikes, that's a new one. I'm assuming you called the dealer ??? What was their response?

 

Did you ever resolve this? Same thing just happened to me.

 

No idea.
I finally had the car jumped - also a learning experience. I called the dealer early in the am - they told me I could not jump the car. So I waited all day for a tow truck. Car was in my garage. They sent out a very large flat bed truck. They could not get to my car with the truck and I have the Volvo box on my car's roof and if they put rollers under the tires the car is too tall to exit under the garage door. So they sent out another smaller tow truck. I again called the dealer. This time the dealer said I could try to jump the car - he said issue is that the Volvo recharge can not jump start another car, but ok to jump. Took 2 seconds and the car started. Nothing was on in the car. All doors closed. Glove compartment closed. I then tried to recreate the problem by leaving my radio on and locking the car with the charging cable in. I could not do that. There is no way you can accidentally leave the car running in the garage with the charger plugged in and the car locked....(not that I would want to)
Needless to say I'm not currently very trusting.
I have ordered a lithium battery charging device so I feel safer about parking my car someplace other than my garage....
Pain

 

Thanks for the info luckily I didn't end up needing that. As with all things GoogleOS seems like it just needed some time to think. Left the car overnight and came out this morning to all things being normal. Love the car overall but hate having to plan software updates around when it would least impact me if it breaks something AGAIN.

 

The issue of the 12-volt battery dying in 2022 Volvos is widely known, and there's at least one or two threads about this over on Swedespeed. It may even be a problem in 2021 Volvo PHEVs, but it's definitely a problem in the "Google Automotive" Volvos. In fact, it's such a big design problem that Volvo has it in their owner manual now: they say that it's very easy for the 12-volt battery to die if you aren't careful and don't drive your car for several days. Crazy...
It appears that something is improperly draining the battery. It's vital that no key fob is near the car when it's parked, and that no phone app is on to "ping" the car remotely. I think that some people were trying to figure out if locking vs. unlocking the car made any difference -- don't recall what came of that. The car needs to be jump-started and then the car run for a while (driving) to re-charge the 12-volt battery. Very very bad design. Any car with a traction battery should be designed to have the traction battery automatically charge the 12-volt battery if it starts to get below a certain threshold; this can be cut off, for the safety of the traction battery, once the traction battery has been depleted to some low threshold of its own, as well. People over on Swedespeed have found the 12-volt battery to die when their cars are very new (within 2-3 months of new), and it seems to be a very widespread problem, corroborated by the fact that Volvo discusses this very problem in their owner manual. This is definitely one of the problems that you have when you try to interact with the car from afar ("radio" lock/unlock; phone/computer apps "talking to the car", etc.); it's even conceivable that Volvo might be partly to blame if they're doing over-the-air updates when the car is parked and off (no updates should be done that would compromise onboard batteries, needless to say).

 

I've had the same issue last week, on Friday.
Connect to car to the charger, like I do other days; and locked the car.
In the morning I wanted to open the car, not any response. Volvo app could also communicate with the car.
Opened the car with the spera metal key. I was able to push the start-button and the console display started without issue, but the front display
didn't recognize the car key or the spare car key.
I had to call the assistance. The first person had to send someone else, because the car was parked in the garage.
The second one arrived and had to call the garage because the had to disable something in the motor compartiment (I suppose with the automatic).
Then he had to put the rear wheels on rollers. But there was also another issue : it was not possible to disconnect the charging cable, which "was"
not a removable one. So an electrician also visited my place to disconnect the cable internally in the charging station.
Which also made it impossible the charge to other car in the evening (the issue occured on a Friday, just before Easter)

For what the garage told me it was a battery issue with the responder in the shark fin.
When I picked up the car, they told me "it is solved now, hope this doesn't occur again", which scares me a little.

Regards

 

I have a 2021 XC60 T8. Left it for 5 weeks in the garage locked this winter and it started without issue when I returned. 25k miles without any DEAD issues. Might be something with the 2022 models only.

 

We had this problem of the key fobs not unlocking the car. We used the metal key to get into the car. Then we placed the key fob in the well located between the two front seats and it was then possible to start the car normally, and drive it to the dealer, as long as the fob stayed in the well. They disconnected the car's 12 volt battery, and then reconnected it, rebooting the computer, and then the key fobs started working to open and lock the car again. I wish there was a way for us to reboot the software other than have the 12 Volt battery disconnected and reconected.

 

I guess one of the things technology is forcing on us is the way our cars function. That said, I've filed away in my head to 'unplug' the battery in the luggage compartment (for a couple of moments) if it ever appears 'unnaturally' dead.

 

It seems all of the accessory system (e.g., remote open etc.) runs off the the 12 volt battery, and it goes dead if you just use the PURE mode, and never run the engine. Or if you leave the car unused a long time. Once that is dead, the FOB no longer works to open the car or start the car. Net: before unplugging the battery, try charging it. And if you use PURE mode most of the time, run it on HYBRID for a bit each day. What a pain.

 

Electric cars aren't really new but we're still in the learning stages I guess. They still don't have a 'standard' on the way things operate. Reminds me of when the VCR VHS vs Betamax wars were going on and the industry finally focused on VHS.

This is my 5th Hybrid and my 2nd PHEV. The idea that you can drive till the battery is too weak then automatically revert to gas is the same, BUT there are major differences in the way they work. My 1st one was the Honda Clarity. It was designed to almost always run as an electric car with a small 1.5L engine to run the generator for electric power when needed. It could also add to the battery balance of energy. It would start up and run at about 2500 rpm for that process even when sitting at a light which kind of felt strange till I got used to it. It was not directly connected to the drive train, just the motor generator (except at some cruise speeds). It was a nicely equipped sedan with the touring package but not available with a sunroof. It was the size of the Accord. Sadly it died when someone in an accident in front of me, spun around and backed into the center post my side at 40 mph. I wasn't hurt a bit but sadly, the car died. It got around 55mpg with regular gas on a cross country trip and could go about 50ish miles on what we call 'pure' mode. It took two hours to charge on my Level II garage charger vs 2.5 hours for the T8. They still make the car however, only west coast and NY state dealers stock it. Any can special order it. For the year it 'lived', it was a very interesting and happy drive.

 

Isn't the 12V battery in the front as part of the traditional car??

 

Maybe, but the T8 PHEV is light years from being traditional. 12v battery is under the mat & cover in the back. Not sure about the other Volvo models.

 

My XC60 T6 Hybrid has been in the dealership garage three times in the last 10 days. I have also had Volvo Assist our 3 times within the last week. Car won't open, Car won't start, Then once re-set Car won't lock. Volvo are telling me its a software problem. My wife was out in the car at the weekend with our young children and couldn't get into the car or start it, late at night. Really fed up! Volvo Assist cam out again on Monday, Technician drove off with passenger door key cover.

Has anybody else had the same issues!

Just want to hand the car back!

 

almost 2 months further... Same issue occured again.
Tried to unlock the car and had to use the spare key
Tried to start and "key not detected".

Probably again a dead "tail fin" battey and its backup battery.

Tim

 

Please give updates when you can.

My understanding is that you can jump-start the 12-volt battery from the front engine compartment (see owner's manual) without having to resort to getting at the battery in the rear. It's unfortunate that it seems that disconnecting the 12-volt battery is necessary to (temporarily?) resolve some problems, though I'm skeptical about that being a real "fix" (and I'm not going to be personally disconnecting any 12-volt battery in my forthcoming XC60; if it's done, it'll be done by my dealership).

I'm buying a 2022.5 XC60 T8 "Extended Range" PHEV this week. I've re-read this thread (which I contributed to back in April, and which made me almost turn down buying my special-order "Recharge" when it arrived), but I've tentatively decided to go ahead with the purchase in hopes that I won't run into similar problems; my dealership is well aware of my concerns, and I'm going in "eyes wide open".

I will only be charging my traction battery in our garage, whence the car will always remain unlocked (as we always have done with our previous two non-Volvo PHEVs), especially noting the problems that people have stated in this thread about unlocking a locked car when it's dead. Second, I plan to never use the Volvo phone app (heck, I won't even download it) -- as I've only ever heard negative things about automakers' phone apps, and I generally don't like using my iPhone for apps other than Google Maps, email, weather apps, and WhatsApp; I don't need to "check up" on my car remotely, and I don't need to heat it or cool it remotely. So hopefully I'll greatly reduce potential drain on the 12-volt battery by never using a phone app. I'll also keep my key fobs far away from our garage, on the opposite side of the house, so there's no potential for 12-volt battery drain there (key fobs "talking" constantly to the car -- a source of 12-volt battery drain posted on some auto forums for "keyless-entry" cars in recent years). Also, I never leave a PHEV plugged in for more than a few hours after the charging has finished. My understanding from the Volvo forum threads and from talking to our dealership's service-department foreman is that the 12-volt battery is charged whenever the traction battery is being charged, but that the charging of the 12-volt battery apparently stops when the charging of the traction battery automatically stops (due to its being "full"), so there could be a (software?) problem on 12-volt battery drain if the car is plugged in for days with the traction battery being fully charged. And, of course, nothing plugged into outlets (USB ports, 12-volt plugs) in the car's cabin while the car is not in use.

So with these simple habits, I'm hoping to avoid the 12-volt-battery drain seen by others in 2022 "Google" Volvos (not just XC60s, and not just PHEVs) and reported so widely on all the Volvo forums. These 2022 Volvos may look like 2021 Volvos, but they are seriously different in both hardware and software. The 2022.5 XC60 PHEVs seem to be completely different animals in their guts, with the expanded battery pack, elimination of the supercharger, increasing the power of the rear-axle motors, Google OS software, total change in power-train software, etc. Volvo seems to be shocked by all the problems that have come in with this new Google/18.8-kWh system as we new owners are; Volvo clearly didn't expect problems at this scale -- bordering on total recalls, seriously. Thankfully for us, we have these online forums to share our problems on, and hopefully these will help Volvo resolve the problems quickly with software fixes (for those of us who already own these Google-OS Volvos) and with hardware fixes for future model years (and I know about some attempts at hardware fixes with the shark antenna, etc., on existing cars, but the jury still seems to be out on that -- as it's not clear why a battery failure in the shark fin should be causing so many problems, nor why there should be a battery failure there anyway).

Also, I think it is incorrect that driving in electric-only mode in the "Extended Range" Volvo PHEVs will cause battery drain of the 12-volt battery. I know of one or two others who drive almost exclusively locally in "Pure" mode for weeks without the ICE coming on once, and this is what I plan to do (the whole reason for buying a PHEV -- to drive without gasoline locally but then use gas when on out-of-town trips, which for me tends to be about once every month or two on average). So I'll be testing this to the max: driving for weeks without the ICE coming on, and charging pretty much every night or two to full. From what the service-department techs say (at multiple Volvo dealerships), charging the traction battery charges the 12-volt battery -- so if you charge frequently, the 12-volt battery should remain charged enough to start the car always. After telling my specific driving habits to my service-department foreman, he said he feels confident that I should never have a problem starting my XC60 ER T8 after leaving it undriven for 2-4 weeks (with no charging of either the traction or 12-volt batteries) in my garage, assuming all the above "habits" are followed (i.e., nothing plugged in in the car's cabin, no key fobs near the car, no use of a phone app remotely, etc.).

I'll provide updates on my own ownership of a 2022.5 XC60 ER T8 here and on Swedespeed, whether or not I experience 12-volt-battery failure and whether or not I experience key-fob issues or GPS failure or infotainment-screen glitches. I hope that others posting here will continue to do so, as well, as it's helpful to us all to share our experiences -- and likely helpful to the Volvo service departments who seem quite perplexed much/most of the time regarding these problems.

 

It just occurred to me that we should try to get some information out of Volvo corporate/HQ as to how much "pinging" of the car is done by Volvo (for updates, for downloading or uploading data, etc.) when the car is not in use. I know that some automakers (including Volvo?) do updates to software when the car is not in use (i.e., sitting overnight), and this could be a huge source of 12-volt battery drain. If this is an issue with Volvos, there needs to be an option for the driver/owner/Volvo to turn that off, like to MY CAR. I don't want/need to have my car connecting with anything or anybody when it's not being driven, especially in a way that might be draining my 12-volt battery.

 

I don't get much usefull information from the garage.
They say it is because of the Google OTA software updates, which don't succesfully update everything needed.
At this moment my car was parked in the garage with the sunroof open (which I always do since the first time), so I easily unlock the car :-)
Other electronics keep working,like lights, opening the trunk.

When the issue is there, I'll also notice that the "SOS" icon turns red on the main display, which states that Volvo services cannot connect.
I purchased the car on 21/03/2022 and this is now the 3rd time the car has to go to the workshop.
Okay, the 2nd time the car needed to go back because something has been broken with the first intervention.

This time the car was not connected to charger (luckily)

With kind regards,
Tim

 

Took delivery of my 2022 XC60 T8 R Type Extended Range mid April 2022. Drove 1,100 miles in Pure mode without any problems. Recharged overnight and maximum mileage was 40 miles. The next 1,200 miles I drove in Hybrid mode because we went on a road trip and there were no charging options. Again, no issues. When home, I charged overnight to 100% and the next morning the car indicated I had 58 miles available (!). Drove the car without a problem. Left the car in the garage for three days and this morning when I tried to open the car it was completely dead. No tail gate opening, no closing/opening of the doors with the remote, dash was dark. Volvo USA sent a tow truck and the driver activated the car by connecting a battery pack. The car is now at the dealer and it will take a few days (I hope not longer) before they can tell me what is wrong. Fingers crossed.