Gemini Notebook read my car’s 150-page manual, and I found features I didn’t know I’d paid for

Shekhar Vaidya is a veteran technology journalist and computer science engineer. He is the founder of TechLatest, where he has spent years providing technical analysis on hardware and Windows ecosystems. Now a Computing Writer at XDA, Shekhar leverages his deep background in NAS, storage solutions, and PC internals to help readers master their tech.

When you buy a car, you pay for its features, but they're all locked behind a thick manual that hardly anyone reads. I got my first car last year, and I thought I had tried everything it offered, but I was wrong. When I actually got around to the manual, I had Gemini Notebook read it. Then I asked it simple questions, like, “What can my car do that I might not know about?”

Nobody reads a 150-page manual, so I made Gemini do it

It knew every Kushaq, but not which one was mine

Like all car owners, I do read the manual every once in a while. Sorry, who am I kidding? Like you, I have never looked past my car’s manual's cover. Last weekend, I finally thought about taking a look at my car’s manual. But reading the hard copy was too tiresome, so I decided to download the digital version and read it on my PC.

Finding a digital version of a car manual is tough, since the model goes through various modifications and the manual gets updated with them. For me, it was even tougher, as Skoda doesn’t publicly share a PDF version; instead, they offer a digital manual viewer that can’t be downloaded directly. So it took some time and several Google searches, but I eventually got it.

I opened the PDF manual. It was 150 pages, mostly text with some graphics. I got bored on the table of contents page. So, I decided to get help from an LLM. I knew I couldn’t just copy-paste a 150-page PDF into chat and start asking questions, as each conversation has a max upload page limit.

That was when I remembered Google Gemini’s Notebook feature. I could add multiple sources to a Notebook, and the chats under that Notebook would have the full context, with answers grounded only in those sources.

After that, it was pretty easy. I prepared a few sets of questions and started asking them. I ran into one minor issue right at the beginning. Even though Gemini answered as per the manual, it never included the page number, only a small PDF citation chip, which wasn’t helpful. I specifically asked it to include the page number when needed.

I started with a simple question: “Which models, versions, and equipment levels does this manual cover?” The manual covered not only my trim, but also all other trims, engines, gearboxes, infotainment, instrument clusters, and air-conditioning variants. So, I gave Gemini the missing context by specifying my exact trim: 2025 Skoda Kushaq 1.0 TSI MT Prestige, with the 10-inch infotainment system, Virtual Cockpit, Climatronic, and keyless entry.

Once that was set up, the real test was whether it would find something I didn’t already know, despite driving it for more than a year.

Then it started describing a different car

It sounded sure of itself, and the car disagreed

My second question to Gemini was, "What can my key and the lock button do beyond lock and unlock?" If you drive a VW Group car, you already know their keys are simple — three buttons (lock, unlock, and boot release) and a foldable key blade. I never go beyond those actions, and honestly, I rarely use the key. It is always in my pocket, and I use the keyless entry.

The answer had a lot of things, most of which I already knew. But one feature I hadn’t even thought of. The feature was named “Deactivating Keyless Entry (KESSY)." It turned out that if I wanted to disable the keyless entry, I could do it with the key’s lock button. Lock the door using the fob, and press the car-handle sensor within five seconds. It confirms by flashing the indicators once.

It can be useful in some scenarios, but I wouldn't use it every day, so I noted it and moved on. I resumed asking various questions, from engines to steering controls. I found another feature hidden right in front of me all those times, and I took the long route every time. I use trip reset quite often.

Even though my Kushaq resets the trip automatically after the ignition has been off for a set time, I sometimes do it manually, and to do that, I always go through the infotainment settings. But I found I could do it by long-pressing the right steering-wheel dial. It is a small convenience feature that’s easy to overlook.

I tested both features on the car itself and confirmed they worked. Neither required a new accessory or an upgrade. They were already there; I just didn’t encounter them during my ownership.

Then it described features my car doesn’t have

It sounded sure of itself, and the car disagreed

During the set of questions, Gemini showed me a few features that my car doesn’t have. One of them was customizing the shortcut drawer that opens on the infotainment when you swipe down from the top edge.

Gemini said I could customize the drawer by holding any icon and reassigning it to any shortcut I wanted, like ambient lighting or TPMS reset. But when I actually checked in my Kushaq, there was no drawer at all. The strange thing was that I remembered having the drawer and using it many times. I am not sure, but I suspect that one of the firmware updates removed it.

Another one was adjusting the speed-limit warning. Gemini initially said the warnings can be adjusted in the instrument cluster, but it didn’t specify whether it was available on my display or on the trims with the MaxiDot analog display, and I have a Virtual Cockpit. I confirmed this in the manual.

Gemini also gave a few more wrong verdicts, including the paddle shifters, which aren't available on a manual gearbox. Other small features, like the steering wheel voice button’s additional features, which I didn’t find working. Regarding the voice button, Gemini said a single press opens Gemini through Android Auto, and a long press opens the car’s own voice assistant, which didn’t work for me.

In the end, Gemini showed a couple of features I wasn’t aware of, and a few that either weren’t available at all or weren't on my trim.

I still haven’t read the manual, and I’ll keep asking it

Gemini flagged four features I didn’t know my car had. When I tested them on my car, only two held up; the other two didn’t match my Kushaq. Four is hardly a large number in a car with this many features, but the two genuine features that held up were worth the few hours I spent on this experiment.

The real takeaway is that Gemini made the thick manual easier to explore. I’d use the same approach to look into more with my car in the future, like warning lights, service intervals, or even another product's documentation.

If you are someone who has never opened the car manual, just paste it into an AI chatbot and explore it; maybe you could discover something new like me.