Gemini 3.7 Flash voice calling on Android Auto keeps failing me - and Google has until September to fix it

I want to love Gemini on Android Auto. I really do. The promise - a Pixel 11 Pro XL connected to my car's head unit, with Gemini 3.7 Flash handling voice calls, navigation via Ask Maps, and message drafting while I keep my eyes on the road - is exactly the kind of ambient AI integration that justifies the entire 2026 AI hype cycle. The reality, after six weeks of daily commuting with the setup, is that Gemini voice calling on Android Auto is the most frustrating piece of software Google has shipped this year, and the company has until its promised September update to fix it or I'm switching back to a dumb Bluetooth headset. The problems are specific and consistent. First, latency. When I ask it to call my wife, there's a four-to-six-second pause before Gemini 3.7 Flash even acknowledges the command, during which the head unit displays a frozen thinking animation that's genuinely dangerous to glance at in traffic. By comparison, the old Google Assistant on the same hardware responded in under a second. Second, hallucinated contacts. Gemini has, on three separate occasions, tried to call someone in my contacts whose name sounds vaguely like the person I asked for but who I haven't spoken to in years - including a former colleague I definitely didn't want to call at 7am. Third, the integration with Android 17's App Bubbles is broken: incoming calls arrive as notifications that overlay the navigation view, and dismissing them sometimes ends the call, sometimes doesn't, and the behavior is inconsistent. Fourth, the Ask Maps integration - which works flawlessly on my Pixel 11 Pro XL standalone - routinely fails to transfer the route to the Android Auto display, forcing me to start navigation on the phone and then plug in. The good news is that Gemini 3.7 Flash's underlying capability is genuinely impressive when it works: complex commands like calling my mom and telling her I'm running fifteen minutes late are handled correctly about 70% of the time, and the message drafting is excellent. But 70% isn't good enough for a safety-critical interface, and the latency alone makes it worse than the system it replaced. Google has publicly committed to a September update that addresses the latency and contact-hallucination issues. If they deliver, this could be the best in-car AI experience on the market. If they don't, I'll be the one with the Bluetooth headset, muttering about how the Pixel 11's AI works everywhere except where I need it most.