Mach-E = Beta Tester

[noname]

At least the car does not creak or rattle and very quiet inside. I just try not to use any software related features or infotainment, because it is garbage

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[TundraEV]

have you… never talked to Tesla owners before???

 

[OlyPen]

If you own a Mach-E you are an Early Adopter (AKA Beta Tester)!

Like it or not. That is a fact, The MME is not ready for mass adoption. With all the on going issues it will take a few years for Ford to get everything refined to the point that anyone could operate one without issues.

Our job as Mach-E owners is to help Ford pave the way for the future. Our pain and suffering will payoff when the days come that EV ownership is taught in public schools as the normal way to drive. We are along way from that.

PaaK is one example. It is not a simple program. I needs to support 2 operating systems and multiple versions of each. Along with this it needs to be tested with dozens of different popular phones to make sure 90% of the customers are covered. Same thing that Tesla does and Tesla took 7 years to get it pretty smooth. Tesla customers still have issues today with some of the Tesla app updates but their mindset on ownership of the car is different then most gas and legacy car owners. Most Tesla owners accept that they are drive a cutting edge computer that will sometimes have software issues. PaaK will get better in time, but it takes a lot of time to get it working for all possible phone/OS combinations. We may have to accept that some phones will never work correctly and 90% is good enough on Ford's part. (Besides this, if you are buying a $50,000 car upgrading your cell phone so you have the best overall experience should be easy enough.).

A modern EV is a supercomputer with wheels. It is a software controlled appliance that you can drive. It is a major departure from legacy cars from the past 100 years. This software is very complicated and takes many very talented programmers to develop, maintain and troubleshoot. It takes a team. When a company like Ford spends 100 years trying to make affordable gas cars then designs an EV from scratch, it may as well be from a different company because Ford had to learn to think different to design the Mach-E. The software may have issues but the hardware is pretty damn impressive.

If we work with Ford and be patient about the little issues we will help pave the way for future EVs from Ford that are truly unplug and drive.

Everyone else we will drag into the future kicking and screaming.

Anyone use the "submit feedback" option in their car settings? Just noticed it today. I'm curious if that process is more helpful for the software developers to track issues?

 

[TundraEV]

Granted I am invested in Mach E as an owner but I sincerely believe Ford nailed this car and produced an amazingly designed and executed vehicle.

This isn’t to say there are not areas for improvement but realistically not every owner is going to be 100% happy with 100% of any new car.

 

[macchiaz-o]

Anyone use the "submit feedback" option in their car settings? Just noticed it today. I'm curious if that process is more helpful for the software developers to track issues?

I've used it a bunch of times, though the menu options are often too limited or unrelated to my feedback. It'd be nice if I could voice dictate something short with it.

I've never received any questions about my feedback, and I honestly don't expect that would happen.

I think this is just a way to have the vehicle upload recent developer log entries to the mother ship, along with some simple health state parameters, so they can Big Data it with everyone else's feedback and hopefully prioritize defect and feature backlogs.

 

[littlD]

As a Senior Agile Coach for a Fortune 200 company, I can attest to "Dark Scrum" and other faux-agile practices.

https://ronjeffries.com/articles/016-09ff/defense/

 

[littlD]

You can ask me questions about my two Teslas and my experiences anytime. I'll try not to respond as a "Stan" yet I truly enjoy my cars and my experience with Tesla cars, their service centers and their dealership-less strategy.

Heck, you can listen to my Podcast if you like.

 

[Sneezy]

I turned in my Cadillac XT4 Friday. I felt like I was a Beta tester. the Caddy dealer was clueless. It had more bugs in it that the next owner will find. Software updates take up to 4 hours to complete. They replaced a HUD unit and it was going bad again. Some days the radio would take 30 seconds or more to turn on.
The suspension never bounced right, it went more corner to corner..... it was also very creaky at 22000 miles at turn in.
I would get daily messages of "SD card removed". The transmission sucked.
Remote start would not always work.

We are all beta testers.

 

[kltye]

So this is a perfect example of a variable making or breaking PaaK useability. Aside from the bulletin and forthcoming OTA, what more acknowledgement do you expect from Ford?

For one, it seems that they now have a white list of phones that work with PaaK, and a hard stop placed on phones they haven't yet validated - why didn't they let us know about this, rather than making me spend hours debugging their app? Two, are they ever going to add more phone manufacturers to this whitelist?

 

[pt19713]

What classifies a car a "Premium"?

Price? The average mean price of all mid-range cars is around $43000 US, The puts the Mach-E slightly above average for gas cars, but in the middle for an EV. Price means nothing here.
Features? You can buy the cheapest Tesla or any other 200+ mile range EV and get similar feature.
Rarity? 50,000 the first year. More than Tesla built from 2013-2015. Not exactly rare for a new product.

The Model S was more expensive at launch than a Mach-E, though, so it wasn't affordable for some middle class families. After launch, the S85D sold for around $80k and the Performance was $95k (without inflation adjustment). Consumer views towards electric cars has changed considerably in the last half decade.

Once Tesla released the Model 3, the first year sales were 145,000 despite all the manufacturing issues they had at product launch. A lot of this probably had to do with the price point being more affordable to more consumers.

 

[kltye]

This thread: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/issue-setting-up-paak.7227/ outlines some investigation into this so-called list. This thread: https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...-troubleshooting-experience-data-points.5804/ details talking to a Ford Guide regarding this unpublished list.

 

[Fermi]

Quirks and outright problems are annoying for sure. If you guys are anything like me with my Tesla experiences, a solid EV is still better in the net than an ICE. I don't think I'd phrase it as being a beta tester but early adopters should expect a less than ideal experience. It's not right or wrong but that's how it goes. We all want to be the cool guy on the block with the new toy, and that new toy isn't going to be as easy to deal with as the old (boring) standby.

Personally I despise the Ford executive team and think they are running the company into the ground but the Mach-E product itself really does seem good.

As a Senior Agile Coach for a Fortune 200 company, I can attest to "Dark Scrum" and other faux-agile practices.

https://ronjeffries.com/articles/016-09ff/defense/

LOL. I don't have a ton of experience with agile but having learned the basics I see "faux-agile" quite often. Some exec reads an article and decides it sounds great but has no idea how to make the organization actually do it.

 

[Brofessional]

Personally I despise the Ford executive team and think they are running the company into the ground but the Mach-E product itself really does seem good.

This has me curious as a stock owner. Are we talking current execs? Because I have felt the exact opposite during the Hackett and Farley era. Granted it could only get better after powershift, but it certainly feels like they have been just killing it.

I think they have likely the most desirable models in their class with the F150/250, Navigator, Aviator, and Mach E. They’ve turned the Raptor nameplate into a recognizable sub brand now worth millions to the company. Bronco excitement is still through the roof. Lightning potential looks to be enormous if they can stay ahead of the curve on towing/hauling relative to other EV manufacturers. Like I just don’t see many decisions I think are bad from the executive side, and to me there seems to be tremendous upside just sitting there. Like in my uninformed opinion they could “Raptor” the upcoming expedition and get huge downstream trim numbers cutting into the GM quartet.

 

[Raymondjram]

If you own a Mach-E you are an Early Adopter (AKA Beta Tester)!

Like it or not. That is a fact, The MME is not ready for mass adoption. With all the on going issues it will take a few years for Ford to get everything refined to the point that anyone could operate one without issues.

Our job as Mach-E owners is to help Ford pave the way for the future. Our pain and suffering will payoff when the days come that EV ownership is taught in public schools as the normal way to drive. We are along way from that.

I believe that a "beta" test is for the pre-production units where Ford selects drivers to. evaluate the vehicles and report mistakes, errors and problems. They were the auto magazine evaluators, and not true buyers. The first customers are "gamma" testers where Ford follows their driving habits and get real world feedback. So the first year buyers are part of the "gamma" testers.

 

[Raymondjram]

Go get one. If you can't find a "real" MME fob, check the forums out for a substitute one and get it programmed. While neither my wife nor I have issues with PAAK (at least consistently), having two fobs is worth the peace of mind imo. The car should have come with 2.

I agree because I lived over sixty years without a smartphone (thirty years without a line phone before) and I tend to leave it at home on short trips. I don't need a phone to live. But I want a physical means to access my cars. What will a car owner do if their phone is lost or broken and they have no other way to access the car or call for help? With a key or fob they can still drive.

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