Ford BlueCruise OTA rollout delayed until Q1 2022

[Woeo]

BlueCruise -- is -- not -- all -- that -- you -- think -- it -- is !!!!!!

The -- promised -- OTA -- update -- is -- not -- only -- bringing -- BlueCruise !!!!!!

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[Malacandra]

Dunno which freeway this is, but BC seemed to work just fine on this 2-lane highway, crushing curves at 80mph. Not Tesla-smooth, but good enough for rookie BC. Perhaps certain highways work better on BC than others?

This is I-10 E in Texas between Fort Stockton and Iraan, headed towards Ozona.

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

So much fun seeing the different reactions to MME news. I look forward to BC but does not affect my daily enjoyment of the car. I'm still on 1.4 so the rest of you guys would crush me in Tic Tac Toe as obviously your getting a lot of practice (LOL).

Anyway, I'm ok waiting. Ford is a big slow OEM as they all are. Only a few people in history can move "move and shake" like Musk & Jobs, ect..... Remember, as has been said many times on this forum, we are 1st year ginea pigs aka beta testers.

 

[Accord07]

Not a big deal. Ahh the drama on this forum. Don’t miss it.

Well, very nice of you to drop in for a visit...thought you have been having too much fun in your FE and forgotten about us still wating for our orders to arrive!

 

[MacheCrazy]

It is also already working in premiums

Yea, Its working great on my Premium that I've has for less than 3 wks. Its funny though when I 1st used it was very insistent that I keep hands on the wheel which sucked, but now its hands free.

 

[Mirak]

Ford and its shareholders have a right to be thrilled by the Q3 results. Those stellar results are also why the BC delay announcement was made today, it hides and buries various pieces of bad news. Nothing new in that.

What is new (enough) is that it has become rather obvious the OTA process is not working as intended. The present process is a drag on an otherwise excellent car. Q1 2022 ends on March 31. That's 155 days from today. There's a high degree of probability that the Mach-e will now go over a year from when customer deliveries started before a substantive feature addition is delivered to eligible (and those willing to pay) cars. And we haven't discussed the lack of bug fixes via OTA. When will real bug fixes begin? Ford's mach-e customers have a right to be disappointed in this facet of their cars. Every OTA target publically mentioned has been missed. Customers can be very forgiving, but they need to see that there will be improvements in the process. If there aren't going to be, let people go to the dealer and have BC and other feature additions added by the service department. Also, not everyone has a trouble-free Mach-e. Some folks were waiting for the OTA system, as promised, to begin delivering the fixes provided by the various TSBs and SSMs. Those who haven't purchased as of yet will also be factoring all of the news, good and bad, into their buying decisions.

To be clear, I don't have a stake in this immediate announcement. I won't be getting BlueCruise, not in Q1 2022, not in the future. There are zero roads on this island that are BC-enabled roadways. But as a customer and early (enough) MME build owner, I have a right to be concerned about what appears to be ever slipping OTA timelines. And appearances do matter.

“Quit complaining.”

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

“Quit complaining.”

But it’s my hobby! I’m a pilot!

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I have no doubt that if you ran a company whose ability to produce a product was cut in half - along with the corresponding profits - you would absolutely start cutting checks for 4 to 8 hour's labor to the dealers to install updates and minor bug fixes. After all you managed to just meet the revised expectations of half the sales you originally projected and budgeted for, but hey if those folks can't play tic-tac-toe their lives are in danger. And of course you would also eat the cost of 8 hours' labor to install a $600 optional software package that most of the cars which don't have it didn't prepay for anyway.

Yep, that's the right way to run a company for sure.

careful - you might have to change your occupation.

 

[generaltso]

Yea, Its working great on my Premium that I've has for less than 3 wks. Its funny though when I 1st used it was very insistent that I keep hands on the wheel which sucked, but now its hands free.

Do you have the power meter on the instrument cluster below the battery percentage?

 

[DR.J56]

I have realized my MME is the best it can be.

 

[Mirak]

Ok so I know none of you will actually listen to anything I have to say but really ...

BlueCruise -- is -- not -- all -- that -- you -- think -- it -- is !!!!!!

As someone who works in technology, spent way too much time at IBM AI and Oracle Cloud, I love cutting edge tech. This is not anything more than what you already have.

I have BlueCruise and I would give it to you all, if I could, just so I could see the disappointment on your face. It doesn't navigate around corners, it ping pongs you all over the road when it hits an expansion joint at 80mph, it disengages without warning you. It needs help and it's just a hands free version of ACC + Lane Centering. And if you're one of those people who like to drive with one hand against your face, ya know like a fist just against your cheek... better learn to stop that because BC says you're not looking at the road when you do that.

All the hands free BC in the world isn't going to bring magical happiness to your drive.

But carry on... we need 50 pages of people complaining ?

I agree with you on BC. It appears that it is nothing more than ACC/LC while swapping an eye nanny for a hand nanny within a geofenced area. Which is frankly pathetic. This is what I was worried about - the cheerleaders were sure that all this rah rah “highway mapping” was gonna make BC awesome - but it looks like I was right. @Ford Motor Company has been completely silent on the issue, which is pretty much all the confirmation we need.

So I’m not going to pay Ford $600 for an optical ankle weight. No thanks.

But this is more a testament to how lousy Ford’s OTA process. And it almost defies belief that anyone is still defending Ford at this point.

 

[kltye]

I think the question now is, at what point do we move from "Ford is overly cautious" to "Ford is incompetent" with regard to the OTA process. Everyone loves to compare against Tesla, but how about another less-established EV competitor, Polestar? They've had less experience with EVs than Tesla, but take a look at their software updates page: https://www.polestar.com/us/manual/polestar-2/2021/article/softwareUpdates/

They have actual changelogs and meaningful improvements! The 1.7.1 update weighing in at several gigabytes for what appears to be marginal improvements reeks of poor compomentization of software to me. That's probably what's holding them back - maybe they thought most owners would connect their cars to wifi, as opposed to relying on cellular connectivity.

When I bought the car, I told myself that I have to be happy with what the car can do today - I didn't think that OTAs were going to substantially improve the car, and I was right. I'm still happy with it, but as others have said, it's going to take a LOT from Ford to get me to buy another of their EVs in the future.

 

[DevSecOps]

Dunno which freeway this is, but BC seemed to work just fine on this 2-lane highway, crushing curves at 80mph. Not Tesla-smooth, but good enough for rookie BC. Perhaps certain highways work better on BC than others?

A finger on the wheel with ACC and LC will do basically the same thing he's showing here, which is kinda my point. You swap the hand nanny for the eyeball nanny and you have BC. If you're interested in seeing a discussion about cornering and BC with a video I have one here

The -- promised -- OTA -- update -- is -- not -- only -- bringing -- BlueCruise !!!!!!

Respectfully, I assume you are not in software. This is just flat out incorrect in so many ways. If they want to push an update and not enable BC it's literally a 5 second flip of a word in the code. BC is not what's holding up an update unless that entire update is solely BC. It's 100% possible that the needed BC software is already installed on every MME, it's just not activated. Is Ford sucking on OTA's? Based on what I've seen here it's a big yes.

But it’s my hobby! I’m a pilot!

Inquiring minds want to know ... what's the #1 complaint you routinely have? Please don't tell me it's something like "autopilot consistently wants to land on the wrong runway".

 

[RickMachE]

I knew there would be issues. I expected Ford to trip over itself, repeatedly. I expected Support to be a joke - and haven't been surprised. Had issues on 7/2, opened case. Dealer got involved with regional rep, reaching out to Engineering, who did get back to dealer. Dealer said "talk to the guy directly and get this resolved". They did not.

Support has been god awful. App is a cluster, frequent updates that break things, things that don't work but then mysteriously work, setting up and re-setting up, lots of wasted time

OTA updates scheduled (confirmed to show pending on Ford's side) that don't happen. Updates that do happen (1.6 then 1.4) but don't allow the features in the update (1.4, SecuriAlert) to be access.

I have a reservation on a Lightning, but if Ford can't fix their communication and technical problems I likely won't go forward with it.

 

[Chuck]

If the OTA process isn't working as expected how do they send an update to fix the OTA process?

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