Google Maps really this much better than built-in Nav?

[Lonesparrow67]

Does it show a Flag icon or the Charger icon if the designation is a charger?

If you are navigating to a charger, it displays the charger icon (whether it is preconditioning or not...)

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[ChrisO]

If you are navigating to a charger, it displays the charger icon (whether it is preconditioning or not...)

Thanks for the correction, my comment was only based on a post I read in this forum, I hadn’t confirmed it myself.

 

[dan_meh]

I’m thinking about switching to android just to get good nav and preconditioning.

 

[A-A-Ron]

With Google Maps now showing state of charge and integrating charging stops, it has become my go to for navigation for the following reasons:

• Somehow despite the Ford Nav presumably understanding the efficiency of the car better, Google Maps is consistently way more accurate in terms of range and usage. It's usually spot on in terms of my arrival SoC for all trips. Ford is just embarrassing. It seems to be particularly terrible when elevation changes are involved, but even on flat ground its horrid.
  • For example, had a trip the other day starting near 10k feet elevation and going down to 5k feet. 140 mile trip. Started with 49% SoC. Ford Nav wanted me to stop for a ~30% charge in the middle of the trip and had me getting to end with 15% or so. Thus thinking I would use like 64% battery on this trip. Google had me stopping for a ~10% charge and had me getting home with 15%, thus thinking I would use 44% for the trip. I know from experience Google made way more sense so I went with that routine. For most of the drive the cluster was showing my projected range was significantly below how far it was to my charging stop. What a joke. Let's just say I made it home with 13% battery and didn't charge at all. Using a total of 36% to go 130 miles, with a new elevation loss of ~5k feet.
  • Had same experience on a largely flat roadtrip a few months ago. Ford constantly showing I would have no hope to make it to the next charger. Google showing I would have plenty of buffer. Google always steered me right, and even Google is somewhat conservative and often depletes faster than reality.
• Ford Nav constantly routes me to stupid chargers at dealerships. I haven't been able to figure out how to exclude networks and such on either platform, but at least Google takes me to actual public DC stations and not awkward stealerships, often ones that aren't even Ford.
• Ford Nav has some really annoying quirks in the Denver area. If you disable HOV lanes in the nav settings, often it will then completely avoid highways which have only 1 HOV lane of the 3 or 4 total lanes. There are a lot of highways here like that. So in order to not have it totally avoid highways, I have to leave HOV on and it constantly tells me to exit and enter HOV. Super annoying. None of this happens with Google.
• Google real-time traffic is way more accurate. Ford seems really hit or miss. Either it is low temporary or spatial resolution, or both smeared together.
• Only benefits I know from Ford Nav are:
  • It will precondition the battery as you near your DC station. Doesn't seem like Google does that.
  • Ford Nav UI is better and more usable in the car. The view of exit lanes and such is nicer. The charger details are nice.

Surely I am not the only one that feels this way? Ford needs to get their shit together. I would blow my brains out if I had to rely on the Ford Nav daily for any reason.

Asking a random 6th grader in my daughter's class to draw a treasure map with a big X marking the spot is a better option than using the built-in nav.

I've seen better drawn maps from GPS units back when cars didn't have screens and you had to buy a 3rd party unit from Garmin or Tom Tom.

The only time I use Ford Nav is when it forgets its settings and turns on destination suggestions by itself, then tries to navigate somewhere in the background. Then I have to fire up Ford Nav, cancel navigation, turn off destination suggestions, and then go back to CarPlay and remove the nav tile from Sync until the next time it happens.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

Forever Google user here. Probably why I'm so critical. I've seen so many changes. As far as Maps in the MME goes, I have one personal annoyance: with the exception of work and home, I wish it would stop recommending potential destinations based on past searches. It annoys me to have to tap the screen to clear (I likes me map clean and empty).

Otherwise, I think Google Maps works just fine.

 

[AnimalChin]

I use MapBox. It reports the locations of Police much better than Waze.

 

[dal]

With Google Maps now showing state of charge and integrating charging stops, it has become my go to for navigation for the following reasons:

• Somehow despite the Ford Nav presumably understanding the efficiency of the car better, Google Maps is consistently way more accurate in terms of range and usage. It's usually spot on in terms of my arrival SoC for all trips. Ford is just embarrassing. It seems to be particularly terrible when elevation changes are involved, but even on flat ground its horrid.
  • For example, had a trip the other day starting near 10k feet elevation and going down to 5k feet. 140 mile trip. Started with 49% SoC. Ford Nav wanted me to stop for a ~30% charge in the middle of the trip and had me getting to end with 15% or so. Thus thinking I would use like 64% battery on this trip. Google had me stopping for a ~10% charge and had me getting home with 15%, thus thinking I would use 44% for the trip. I know from experience Google made way more sense so I went with that routine. For most of the drive the cluster was showing my projected range was significantly below how far it was to my charging stop. What a joke. Let's just say I made it home with 13% battery and didn't charge at all. Using a total of 36% to go 130 miles, with a new elevation loss of ~5k feet.
  • Had same experience on a largely flat roadtrip a few months ago. Ford constantly showing I would have no hope to make it to the next charger. Google showing I would have plenty of buffer. Google always steered me right, and even Google is somewhat conservative and often depletes faster than reality.
• Ford Nav constantly routes me to stupid chargers at dealerships. I haven't been able to figure out how to exclude networks and such on either platform, but at least Google takes me to actual public DC stations and not awkward stealerships, often ones that aren't even Ford.
• Ford Nav has some really annoying quirks in the Denver area. If you disable HOV lanes in the nav settings, often it will then completely avoid highways which have only 1 HOV lane of the 3 or 4 total lanes. There are a lot of highways here like that. So in order to not have it totally avoid highways, I have to leave HOV on and it constantly tells me to exit and enter HOV. Super annoying. None of this happens with Google.
• Google real-time traffic is way more accurate. Ford seems really hit or miss. Either it is low temporary or spatial resolution, or both smeared together.
• Only benefits I know from Ford Nav are:
  • It will precondition the battery as you near your DC station. Doesn't seem like Google does that.
  • Ford Nav UI is better and more usable in the car. The view of exit lanes and such is nicer. The charger details are nice.

Surely I am not the only one that feels this way? Ford needs to get their shit together. I would blow my brains out if I had to rely on the Ford Nav daily for any reason.

I simply prefer Google Maps because the directions are so much better and to date, Ford navigation still cannot find my address, but nosey Google can!

 

[music_cities]

With Google Maps now showing state of charge and integrating charging stops, it has become my go to for navigation for the following reasons:

• Somehow despite the Ford Nav presumably understanding the efficiency of the car better, Google Maps is consistently way more accurate in terms of range and usage. It's usually spot on in terms of my arrival SoC for all trips. Ford is just embarrassing. It seems to be particularly terrible when elevation changes are involved, but even on flat ground its horrid.
  • For example, had a trip the other day starting near 10k feet elevation and going down to 5k feet. 140 mile trip. Started with 49% SoC. Ford Nav wanted me to stop for a ~30% charge in the middle of the trip and had me getting to end with 15% or so. Thus thinking I would use like 64% battery on this trip. Google had me stopping for a ~10% charge and had me getting home with 15%, thus thinking I would use 44% for the trip. I know from experience Google made way more sense so I went with that routine. For most of the drive the cluster was showing my projected range was significantly below how far it was to my charging stop. What a joke. Let's just say I made it home with 13% battery and didn't charge at all. Using a total of 36% to go 130 miles, with a new elevation loss of ~5k feet.
  • Had same experience on a largely flat roadtrip a few months ago. Ford constantly showing I would have no hope to make it to the next charger. Google showing I would have plenty of buffer. Google always steered me right, and even Google is somewhat conservative and often depletes faster than reality.
• Ford Nav constantly routes me to stupid chargers at dealerships. I haven't been able to figure out how to exclude networks and such on either platform, but at least Google takes me to actual public DC stations and not awkward stealerships, often ones that aren't even Ford.
• Ford Nav has some really annoying quirks in the Denver area. If you disable HOV lanes in the nav settings, often it will then completely avoid highways which have only 1 HOV lane of the 3 or 4 total lanes. There are a lot of highways here like that. So in order to not have it totally avoid highways, I have to leave HOV on and it constantly tells me to exit and enter HOV. Super annoying. None of this happens with Google.
• Google real-time traffic is way more accurate. Ford seems really hit or miss. Either it is low temporary or spatial resolution, or both smeared together.
• Only benefits I know from Ford Nav are:
  • It will precondition the battery as you near your DC station. Doesn't seem like Google does that.
  • Ford Nav UI is better and more usable in the car. The view of exit lanes and such is nicer. The charger details are nice.

Surely I am not the only one that feels this way? Ford needs to get their shit together. I would blow my brains out if I had to rely on the Ford Nav daily for any reason.

One thing with Google Maps: is there any way to plan an EV trip when you are *not* sitting in your car? I can pick my "vehicle type" but it still won't suggest charging stops when I'm sitting in the house.

I can confirm the elevation problems with Connected Navigation. I came back from a backpacking trip up by Saskatchewan Crossing (Banff National Park) yesterday, starting at 61%, it told me to add 12% at a DCFC to arrive home with 10%. I added 4% at an L2 and arrived home with 13%. But it's also pessimistic in general, at least in the mountain parks. Round trip planning (before leaving home) had me adding 23%, when in fact I could have done the entire 406km trip without any charging, due partly to elevation changes but also due to lower speed limits and traffic congestion.

I use ABRP and Plugshare to plan my charging stops. No single tool is suitable for planning my charging stops, but using ABRP to conceptually plan the trip and then PlugShare to check reliability and look for slower chargers at hotels and restaurants works well. Once the charging stops are chosen, I wish I could still use my phone (FordPass) to enter the trip into Connected Navigation, like I could when I bought the car, which was a selling point for me.

 

[phidauex]

Ford Nav has some really annoying quirks in the Denver area. If you disable HOV lanes in the nav settings, often it will then completely avoid highways which have only 1 HOV lane of the 3 or 4 total lanes. There are a lot of highways here like that. So in order to not have it totally avoid highways, I have to leave HOV on and it constantly tells me to exit and enter HOV. Super annoying. None of this happens with Google.

This one in particular makes the Ford nav virtually unusable in Denver. You should see the wild gyrations it recommends to try to keep me off of 36 on my commute to work. I've reported it a few times but it doesn't seem like they are making updates to navigation.

 

[music_cities]

So, firstly, my apologies for not searching the forum first, but this seems like a good place to ask: how do I know if my Mach-E is pre-conditioning

As far as I can tell, you need to buy an OBD2 dongle and monitor the battery temperature to know if you are preconditioning. More specifically: the car does not tell you whether you are preconditioning on any of its screens or displays, as far as I know.

 

[ChrisO]

One thing with Google Maps: is there any way to plan an EV trip when you are *not* sitting in your car? I can pick my "vehicle type" but it still won't suggest charging stops when I'm sitting in the house.

I can confirm the elevation problems with Connected Navigation. I came back from a backpacking trip up by Saskatchewan Crossing (Banff National Park) yesterday, starting at 61%, it told me to add 12% at a DCFC to arrive home with 10%. I added 4% at an L2 and arrived home with 13%. But it's also pessimistic in general, at least in the mountain parks. Round trip planning (before leaving home) had me adding 23%, when in fact I could have done the entire 406km trip without any charging, due partly to elevation changes but also due to lower speed limits and traffic congestion.

I use ABRP and Plugshare to plan my charging stops. No single tool is suitable for planning my charging stops, but using ABRP to conceptually plan the trip and then PlugShare to check reliability and look for slower chargers at hotels and restaurants works well. Once the charging stops are chosen, I wish I could still use my phone (FordPass) to enter the trip into Connected Navigation, like I could when I bought the car, which was a selling point for me.

Yeah, I find this annoying too. I sort of get it, it doesn’t have the state of charge or the information of approximately the miles per KWh when it’s not in the car. But I wish there was just a way to enter that information. Because it certainly is a pain to have to get into the car to do the actual routing that’ll include chargers.

 

[Mustangor]

Ford's navigation system is a joke, and with Google Maps now preconditioning DC charging, that crap can now be relegated where it belongs: in the trash.

 

[ChrisO]

I wonder who provides Ford’s navigation, I seriously doubt Ford does.

Most likely an API from someone else.

 

[AZBill]

One thing with Google Maps: is there any way to plan an EV trip when you are *not* sitting in your car? I can pick my "vehicle type" but it still won't suggest charging stops when I'm sitting in the house.

There is a way to do it manually. After setting the destination, select Add Stop, then it should pop up a charging station option. Hit that and it will give a list of chargers on the route to pick from. It is not going to provide the SoC estimates on your phone, but it should show up when you connect to your car.

For vehicles like GM and Volvo, it has the vehicle connected to the phone app and can do it automatically, with SoC predictions. Ford will get that feature when it transitions to the new Google implementation that they announced.

 

[AZBill]

I wonder who provides Ford’s navigation, I seriously doubt Ford does.

Most likely an API from someone else.

They are using Here Maps.

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