Ford BlueCruise OTA rollout delayed until Q1 2022

[RickMachE]

That is a great idea. I personally would be happy to pay the service department say $1,000 to install it manually now vs. wait until some date in the future. It went from 3rd quarter 2021, to "fall" 2021, to first quarter 2022 in a matter of days. Ford could update the OTA department that my VIN has the update so it wouldn't try to reinstall it later. I think the Tesla delays in sending out updates were actually update driven, not over the air driven. This seems like a unique situation. In the call it was mentioned that they wanted to delay to simplify the technology, but even that seems confusing. Is it the OTA that needs simplification (likely) or the actual bluecruise software?

$1,000? Are you kidding?

I had a discussion with the GM of my dealership about the idea of having a "Fast Update Lane" similar to a "Fast Oil Change". He said they've thought about it, but it takes so long for some updates today that it's not feasible.

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[Malacandra]

Hey there! We appreciate your patience with the delay. However, we're glad you're still enjoying your vehicle. Soon you'll have lots of practice with tic tac toe.
Take care!

They’re mocking us.

 

[Machesocal]

Ford had an impressive 3Q 2021 and Jim Farley also says rollout of BlueCruise pushed back to 1Q 2022.

Separately, Farley on Wednesday said Ford would delay an over-the-air rollout of its BlueCruise hands-free highway driving system from this year until the first quarter of next year. He said the delay is to simplify the technology, which is viewed as a new recurring revenue opportunity and a way for Ford to catch up with other systems from competitors such as GM and Tesla.

Ford shatters Wall Street’s earnings expectations, raises guidance for the year on new vehicle demand

DETROIT — Ford Motor nearly doubled Wall Street’s earnings expectations and slightly beat revenue projections for the third quarter, leading the automaker to increase its annual guidance for the second time this year.

Here’s how Ford performed versus what Wall Street expected based on average analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.

• Adjusted EPS: 51 cents per share adjusted vs. 27 cents per share expected
• Automotive revenue: $33.21 billion vs. $32.54 billion expected
• Ford’s shares jumped by more than 9% during after-hours trading. The stock closed Wednesday down by 2.7% to $15.51 a share.

‘More to come’
Ford cited strong demand for newer products such as the Bronco SUV and Mustang Mach-E, which the company said could reach 200,000 units in sales globally a year.
“I believe we have the right plan to drive growth and unlock unprecedented value,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told investors Wednesday during a call. “You’re already seeing favorable change in the slope of our earnings and cash flow. There’s more to come.”

Work on refining Bluecruise (or a successor continues. https://ford.gr8people.com/jobs/7750/steering-controls-engineer-lcabluecruise

 

[RickMachE]

From what I have heard in speaking with people are various Ford service departments, Ford discovered an issue with OTA updates where it was not accounting for people who had their Mach-E software or modules updated at the dealership.

It resulted in OTAs basically overwriting and reverting software and modules with older software versions. What was happening is that a service department would install updates to fix a problem and then the customers come back later with the same problem, only to find that an older software was pushed via OTA and effectively broke things again.

They apparently are working to fix the OTA process to account for this and could be why the OTA push of 1.7.1 has been stopped for the time being. This could also be why the BC OTA was delayed.

If true, someone should be fired. Dealerships constantly apply fixes. To then overwrite them with older software should have been at the top of the decision tree.

 

[hybrid2bev]

Work on refining Bluecruise (or a successor continues. https://ford.gr8people.com/jobs/7750/steering-controls-engineer-lcabluecruise

Also for OTA....

 

[Gimme_my_MME]

Also for OTA....

 

[imstriker]

Also for OTA....

Oh, we are in now. They just realized that hiring Jim as a contractor in his garage wasn't enough to do OTA programming. Once they get up to 6 people working on OTA at Ford, watch out! I'd hate to be that Future OTA position. My first memo would just be "nope".

 

[Luke]

If true, someone should be fired. Dealerships constantly apply fixes. To then overwrite them with older software should have been at the top of the decision tree.

That explains why PaaK was ok for some time after the dealer upgrade. Also the OTA1.6 fixed my issues with CarPlay only to break again with OTA1.7.1, now I'm back to daily screen resets to get CarPlay to show up in the screen.

 

[Mathington]

If true, someone should be fired. Dealerships constantly apply fixes. To then overwrite them with older software should have been at the top of the decision tree.

Yea, you would have thought there would be something in the OTA to check the current installed software/firmware version of the module. Perhaps this isn't true and the service reps aren't understanding what's actually causing the problem but it does make sense as to why they could have delayed this OTA.

 

[benk016]

From what I have heard in speaking with people are various Ford service departments, Ford discovered an issue with OTA updates where it was not accounting for people who had their Mach-E software or modules updated at the dealership.

It resulted in OTAs basically overwriting and reverting software and modules with older software versions. What was happening is that a service department would install updates to fix a problem and then the customers come back later with the same problem, only to find that an older software was pushed via OTA and effectively broke things again.

They apparently are working to fix the OTA process to account for this and could be why the OTA push of 1.7.1 has been stopped for the time being. This could also be why the BC OTA was delayed.

I don't think this is true. One of the first actions that happens during an OTA is running the interrogator tool to collect the current stats of the car and versions of everything.

It is possible they just didn't add In the deployment to skip an update if it had a higher version already.

Plus the fact the OTAs we have gotten have only touched the TCU, GWM and now the APIM, there haven't really been any dealer updates that OTAs could have overwritten.

 

[garfieldorlando]

Also for OTA....

They need to open a site at silicon valley. No good developers will go to Michigan.

 

[hybrid2bev]

They need to open a site at silicon valley. No good developers will go to Michigan.

Like this one? FORD GREENFIELD LABS

https://corporate.ford.com/operations/locations/silicon-valley.html

 

[shoopla]

They need to open a site at silicon valley. No good developers will go to Michigan.

True, but then they'd need to charge $1500 per car to offset CA developer salaries..

 

[garfieldorlando]

Like this one? FORD GREENFIELD LABS

https://corporate.ford.com/operations/locations/silicon-valley.html

Yea and move those software positions away from Michigan.

 

[garfieldorlando]

True, but then they'd need to charge $1500 per car to offset CA developer salaries..

$1500 for working software seems worth it.

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