bamf

A piece of info on the 2018 Audi Q5 website makes the following statement:
You can see this notice yourself if you go to the Audi Q5 website and click the View Key Info (direct link to notice) link under the "Audi Virtual Cockpit section.

What strikes me as strange is that the notice says "will not be available" instead of "may not be available", which leads me to believe that their agreement already has an end-date and Audi has chosen (prematurely) not to renew in 2020. Of course, it preempts the statement saying the services are subject to change at any time. Either way, it's something to be aware of 3 years from now.

superswiss

Yes all cars prior to MY19 will lose Google Earth. There's an updated post on another thread about this from me. Google is apparently making a change to Google Earth that is no longer compatible with older hardware. MY19 according to Audi customer support will have new hardware to support Google Earth moving forward. No word yet on whether Audi will offer a hardware upgrade for older cars.

jmiller31

While this doesn't thrill me it's not the end of the world. I actually prefer the map without the Google Earth view. As someone who just bought two 2018 models (SQ5 & A5) it bothers me that this might negatively impact my resell value. I wonder if Audi will be forced to treat this as a recall and issue a software update for the MMI to remove the Google option? We all know that Audi hates to do MMI updates to a car unless a customer screams, this seems like a problem for anyone within the warranty period. I realize the disclaimer somewhat covers them but still is seems a strange place for them to have put themselves.

NeedMoreHP

cakasky

I sniff Class Action suit?! [Count me in!]

Personally, I am getting used to using Google Earth and am liking it. I do hope Audi offers an upgrade (I probably would pay for it)

AndroidRobot

I agree with you there. Maybe they will throw out the awful IRNX traffic and use Google's instead. Nothing beats Google Maps thanks to Waze and Google's algorithms.

superswiss

PR nightmare perhaps, but class action won't get you far. The terms and conditions explicitly state that Audi can change the service at any time, even discontinue parts or all of it.

NeedMoreHP

If they knew about it beforehand and didn’t disclose it purposely with the intent of boosting sales, it could be bad news and a horrible PR nightmare for one of their bread and butters.

superswiss

They did disclose it a while back. The notice OP found was first posted before MY18 models were even for sale and has been discussed on this forum for a while now. Nobody actually contacted Audi for the longest time about what exactly is going on, so I finally emailed them a few weeks back and posted the update. We now know exactly what is going on, but it has been known for a while that Google Earth is going away. What we didn't know is that they are working on an update for future models. They actually changed the deadline. It was first to go away by 2017 or 18. Don't remember exactly. I'm guessing they needed more time to get the updated MMI ready. Now at least nothing will change until December 31, 2020.

bamf

Thanks superswiss. I went back and read the previous comments in the A4/B9 forums.

While the sunset of the service is disclosed in the fine print (or behind a link on the marketing site, in this case), it's not something I was aware of when I purchased my new car.

I think that the end of the service could hurt resale value, along with my confidence in any future Audi software features they advertise. I hope that Audi does come up with an option (even for a small fee) to upgrade the infotainment system to whatever they end up replacing Google Earth with.