diff --git a/ci-automation/ci-config.env b/ci-automation/ci-config.env
index 52768fb8ee..8fce6b67cb 100644
--- a/ci-automation/ci-config.env
+++ b/ci-automation/ci-config.env
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ QEMU_UEFI_BIOS="${QEMU_UEFI_BIOS:-flatcar_production_qemu_uefi_efi_code.fd}"
 
 # Update payload for the qemu_update.sh test.
 # The default path set below is relative to TEST_WORK_DIR
-QEMU_UPDATE_PAYLOAD="tmp/flatcar_test_update.gz"
+QEMU_UPDATE_PAYLOAD="${QEMU_UPDATE_PAYLOAD:-tmp/flatcar_test_update.gz}"
 
 # Devcontainer settings for isolated / local testing w/o a remote
 #  devcontainer server and/or binhost.
diff --git a/ci-automation/vendor-testing/qemu_update.sh b/ci-automation/vendor-testing/qemu_update.sh
index 5232b09938..986685c918 100755
--- a/ci-automation/vendor-testing/qemu_update.sh
+++ b/ci-automation/vendor-testing/qemu_update.sh
@@ -24,10 +24,10 @@ if [ "$*" != "" ] && [ "$*" != "*" ] && [[ "$*" != *"cl.update."* ]]; then
 fi
 
 mkdir -p "$(dirname ${QEMU_UPDATE_PAYLOAD})"
+mkdir -p tmp
 if [ -f "${QEMU_UPDATE_PAYLOAD}" ] ; then
     echo "++++ ${CIA_TESTSCRIPT}: Using existing ${QEMU_UPDATE_PAYLOAD} for testing ${CIA_VERNUM} (${CIA_ARCH}) ++++"
 else
-    # TODO: Change the GitHub Action to provide this artifact and detect that case here and skip the bincache download
     if ! curl --head -o /dev/null -fsSL --retry-delay 1 --retry 60 --retry-connrefused --retry-max-time 60 --connect-timeout 20 "https://bincache.flatcar-linux.net/images/${CIA_ARCH}/${CIA_VERNUM}/flatcar_test_update.gz"; then
       echo "1..1" > "${CIA_TAPFILE}"
       echo "ok - skipped qemu update tests" >> "${CIA_TAPFILE}"