Ford falling behind daily

[superdave80]

I think Ford made a UX decision to show the clock time at which the car is expected to reach 80% in the IPC. For people not active on this forum, or diving into the details of charger output, that may have been a reasonable decision.
From my experience, it's maddening when the clock time keeps climbing because the charge rate is dropping.

It's possible they didn't want people to pull up to a 250kw charger, see a charge rate of 110kw, and think something was 'wrong'. However, even with the time-to-80% displayed, that doesn't help me really diagnose if the charger is running at an acceptable speed or not. They SHOULD put "requested charge rate"/"current charge rate". If I see 90kw/90kw, then I know the charger is fine. If I see 90kw/40kw, I know something is screwed up with the charger, and that I might want to do something about that (switch chargers/call charger company/etc.)

But Ford is hell-bent on giving us as little information about our car as possible...

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[VaporTrails]

I’ll jump on the cute bandwagon. CarPlay was a non-optional feature for my next car. That car became the Mach-E. I really like the execution so far. My music is always available, my living room navigation becomes in-car…complete with battery and charging factored into the plan. Like ABRP, but built-in. The driver display is mostly good. The navigation directions in the drivers screen is what I want. (Yes, I’m in the speed display whiners club).

I don’t like that FordPass is a bit clunky and they killed off that Scriptable widget that would make it cooler. I definitely don’t like that I am requested to give up location info to the app. Even though the car knows where it is, Ford doesn’t really need to know where I am. Maybe I’m missing some multi-factor PaaK feature here, but it could be made more clear if that is the case.

 

[helium89]

I think people who judge a car by what phone app it uses are cute.

An app that feels like an afterthought would be forgivable if the rest of the software experience was solid. When the user experience for the entire car feels like an afterthought, a buggy, poorly functioning app is just salt in the wound.

 

[bshaw]

It's possible they didn't want people to pull up to a 250kw charger, see a charge rate of 110kw, and think something was 'wrong'. However, even with the time-to-80% displayed, that doesn't help me really diagnose if the charger is running at an acceptable speed or not. They SHOULD put "requested charge rate"/"current charge rate". If I see 90kw/90kw, then I know the charger is fine. If I see 90kw/40kw, I know something is screwed up with the charger, and that I might want to do something about that (switch chargers/call charger company/etc.)

But Ford is hell-bent on giving us as little information about our car as possible...

Totally agree they should place the 90kW/40kW somewhere in the display during DCFC.

But, keep in mind that opens another can of worms where people are seeing 150kW on their window sticker, and then are calling their dealer because the car is not requesting 150kW all the time. It would be like the GOM "How come I lost miles of range?" thing all over again.

 

[bshaw]

my living room navigation becomes in-car

You use navigation in your living room? Send a picture.

 

[Thunderbuck]

It's possible they didn't want people to pull up to a 250kw charger, see a charge rate of 110kw, and think something was 'wrong'. However, even with the time-to-80% displayed, that doesn't help me really diagnose if the charger is running at an acceptable speed or not. They SHOULD put "requested charge rate"/"current charge rate". If I see 90kw/90kw, then I know the charger is fine. If I see 90kw/40kw, I know something is screwed up with the charger, and that I might want to do something about that (switch chargers/call charger company/etc.)

But Ford is hell-bent on giving us as little information about our car as possible...

I'll agree that Ford seems to have consciously elected to "dumb down" the experience. There are some marketing reasons to do this (like, they expected most Mach-E buyers to be EV newbies), but I wish there were some "pro-level" instrumentation we could unlock.

One thing Tesla provides is that little line across the top of the screen that subtly indicates whether the car is consuming power or generating it back through regen. That strikes me as a relatively easy metric to track. I also wish we had an explicit indicator to show when the battery is preconditioning for a charging stop.

 

[RickMachE]

I mean, the UI is nice but is a live activity REALLY that big of a deal?

Rivian is lacking things that the MachE and Lightning have like...

• CarPlay/AA
  • With EV routing for both
• In car entertainment (only YouTube but better than nothing in Rivian).
• Sirius XM
  • For an "adventure" vehicle, crazy they only rely on cell service for radio. When on trails, you won't have service...
• Charge Assist App (saves from needing to download tens of random provider apps)
• V2H (Lightning)
• Heat Pump (24+ Lightning)
• Any kind of service network (Rivian SCs are booked 3-4 months out, such bad horror stories)

So yea, I'd hardly say Ford is falling behind Rivian when Rivian is missing things Ford has. They are just missing different sets of features, so pick your poison.

FordPass and Charge Assist provide the same capability as far as allowing one app to be used. Charge Assist consistently displays the wrong charging speed for a charger, the wrong price, the wrong status... And, if you use it to then navigate to a charger, oops, no preconditioning...

SiriusXM is considered a "feature" by some, and by others, not a feature. I'm in the "how can I delete this" camp.

It's possible they didn't want people to pull up to a 250kw charger, see a charge rate of 110kw, and think something was 'wrong'. However, even with the time-to-80% displayed, that doesn't help me really diagnose if the charger is running at an acceptable speed or not. They SHOULD put "requested charge rate"/"current charge rate". If I see 90kw/90kw, then I know the charger is fine. If I see 90kw/40kw, I know something is screwed up with the charger, and that I might want to do something about that (switch chargers/call charger company/etc.)

But Ford is hell-bent on giving us as little information about our car as possible...

Early adopters and this forum are NOT representative of the car buying public. The more info presented, the more confusion.

Totally agree they should place the 90kW/40kW somewhere in the display during DCFC.

But, keep in mind that opens another can of worms where people are seeing 150kW on their window sticker, and then are calling their dealer because the car is not requesting 150kW all the time. It would be like the GOM "How come I lost miles of range?" thing all over again.

Yup.

 

[VaporTrails]

You use navigation in your living room? Send a picture.

Yup. Only 29 hours to New England area. Nope. Not getting off the couch.

 

[dj_stang]

Totally agree they should place the 90kW/40kW somewhere in the display during DCFC.

But, keep in mind that opens another can of worms where people are seeing 150kW on their window sticker, and then are calling their dealer because the car is not requesting 150kW all the time. It would be like the GOM "How come I lost miles of range?" thing all over again.

Why don’t people call the customer service hotline and do that for Tesla and Rivian? I hate the idea that Ford customers specifically are dumber than other EV automakers that we have to treat them like special needs.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

I hate the idea that Ford customers specifically are dumber than other EV automakers that we have to treat them like special needs.

At least let each person speak for themselves.

 

[medriver]

My hypothesis is in fordpass (and maybe even the UI given how slow it loads) every interaction seems to be like a complete information push/pull transaction from the car, it takes such a long time, I don't think they WANT to do many transactions with the car re 12v woes) and given this is the architecture they seem to be using they may be really limited in what they can do.

 

[bbulkow]

I mean, the UI is nice but is a live activity REALLY that big of a deal?

Rivian is lacking things that the MachE and Lightning have like...

• CarPlay/AA
  • With EV routing for both

Hell yeah. Ford did the thing that mattered to me and got my business. It doesn't matter to me that rivian has some small feature because Ford got the big one right....

I still wonder how much "opposition marketing" happens on forums like this... I mean, ford's not perfect and everyone should have their voice.... but it's also a good modern marketing technique for a Rivian, Tesla, or Hyundai to pay a person post a "question" like "how much further has ford fallen behind?". It's not even illegal, they "just asked a question".

I'm sure it happens on Reddit all the time for all kinds of products...

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

The App is of minimal importance to me. I love that I can use it to remote start the car and also read very vague OTA descriptions (LOL); but I bought the car for THE CAR. It's the hardware that Ford does better than its competitors (with Hyundai/Kia may be the exception within a reasonable price range). When we go car shopping do you ask to see an app example? Just my 2 cents.

 

[OcSteve39]

Has anyone looked into Ford's new "Apple" guy to varify he wasn't the front desk security guy?

 

[imstriker]

Even poor little Lucid: https://electrek.co/2024/02/28/lucid-releases-tesla-dog-mode-feature-pet/

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