thank you for the response

That was a great explanation that even I was able to understand. Thank You. And the link you provided was also very informative

The car is an Audi.

Have not seen other complaints on line about the issue.

I am not using Wifi. The car will search, just like an iphone, for nearby wifi sources. But I am not doing that

The car itself has a hot spot that you can activate. And it activates fine. When I go to wifi on my iphone I can see the hotspot (I gave it a name) and the phone easily connects to the hotspot. The Wifi symbol pops up on my iphone

You do HAVE TO pay for the hotspot just as you said in your comment, but they give you several months FREE.

Trying to figure out why I can use the hotspot or apple car play fine, but never both at the same time

Hope this answers the questions that you asked

Note - the car is a new 2025