Older VW ID. cars gain battery pre-heating in 3.9.1 software update

Older VW ID. cars gain battery pre-heating in 3.9.1 software update

10 November 2026: Volkswagen is adding manual battery pre-heating before DC fast charging to older electric cars through ID. Software 3.9.1, an over-the-air update that also tests for excessive high-voltage battery self-discharge and repairs a door-handle fault. According to heise autos, the update covers MEB cars on software 3.x from model years 2020 to 2024, and owners who decline it lose access to later updates.

Not yet independently verified. Volkswagen's notes for 3.9.1 carry no release date and name no vehicles. The model scope, install conditions and rollout details come from heise autos of 9 November 2026. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

Faster charging and a battery health test

Pre-heating is started from the charging menu and is meant to raise charging power at a DC station. Volkswagen also says thermal management now adapts to how the car is being driven and cools the battery after a fast charge.

The self-discharge check is the change a fleet manager should read twice. Volkswagen says the test is needed only for a few batteries. If the result is abnormal, a yellow warning light for an electric drive fault comes on and a workshop visit is advised. The car stays drivable, although battery life may be shortened.

Other fixes cover electric door handles that without the update may malfunction in wet weather, a drop in AC charging power, a child-lock warning that now clears by itself, and solar surplus charging with the SMARTFOX Pro wallbox, which works again after a pause. The welcome screen disappears after five seconds.

Which cars and how it arrives

Heise lists mainly ID.4 and ID.5 cars built before October 2023, ID.3 cars up to 2024 and early ID. Buzz vans. Older Skoda Enyaq models get pre-conditioning through a separate Skoda update. Rollout is in waves with unpublished selection criteria, so two identical cars may receive it weeks apart.

The conditions reported by heise are specific:

• an active VW Connect or older We Connect contract, with one-time consent to data use and online mode switched on
• more than 50% charge before installation, and no driving or charging while it runs
• no way back to the previous version
• over-the-air delivery only from version 3.7 upward, with older cars needing an intermediate update or a workshop

Taxi conversions and cars with third-party retrofits may be excluded.

A dead end for the 3.x line

Declining keeps the warranty but stops future over-the-air updates, because 3.9.1 is the prerequisite for them. There is also no jump from 3.x to the 4.x to 6.x software in newer cars, which Volkswagen attributes to UN rules in force since July 2022 that would need new hardware. VW strongly recommends the security fixes in the release, though heise notes it names neither CVE numbers nor components, and no support end date for 3.x has been published.

We list the ID.3, ID.4 and ID.7 among 124 electric cars in our catalogue.

Related on TrustList:

• Rivian moves every R1 to RivianOS 2 with software update 2026.31
• GM recalls 67,380 electric Cadillacs and Chevrolets over brake software

Sources

• Volkswagen Germany: ID. Software 3.9.1 main changes (read 10 November 2026), 10 November 2026
• heise autos: VW-Konzernmodelle mit Software 3.x bekommen Akkuheizung dank Update, 9 November 2026