State of Charge - Ford F-150 Lightning: Exclusive Interview With Ford VP, Darren Palmer

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He talks at the 30:36 mark a bit about the stumble with rolling out BlueCruise to the Mach-E, but that OTA updates are flowing now and a new interface is coming soon. Not like we haven't heard it before, but still nice to hear it from the top. Linked to that spot here:

 
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generaltso

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He also mentioned at the end a little nugget about the early charging issues with the MME we saw in the Chicago area. I don't remember ever hearing what the real problem was with that, but Darren said that the issue was that the utility power was not running at 60Hz, and was pretty far out of spec. Interesting.
 

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Okay now I'm hyped for the UI update. Sounds like things are really moving along nicely now.

He also mentions auto-opening doors on the Mach-E at ~32min. Says it's possible but don't expect it anytime soon.
 

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Okay now I'm hyped for the UI update. Sounds like things are really moving along nicely now.

He also mentions auto-opening doors on the Mach-E at ~32min. Says it's possible but don't expect it anytime soon.
😂 @ the idea of auto opening doors. No thank you. My doors don't even open properly as it is. Two button presses is required 25% of the time for rear doors. 10% of the time it requires me to open the front door first then the rear doors will respond. I don't trust the dev team to know how to properly program doors ATM. Hell, some people are still waiting for their frunk software update. 😂
 


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Thoughts:
  • Darren didn't really answer the DCFC timed boost question. Personally I think it's an "overboost" that allows more current until the conductors in the pack heat up, then drops down.
  • DCFC performance above 80% is good now with the update, but the performance below 80% is still behind average for the market, and should be improved upon.
  • He mentioned battery array serviceability at dealers taking only half a day vs. weeks to plan a battery replacement. This seems really out of touch with reality. Yes an array COULD be replaced in half a day by an experienced technician, but customers needing array (and HVBJB) replacements are having to wait significantly longer due to poorly trained dealers.
  • Business customers with Lightning fleets are not going to put up with the current dealer repair bullshit if it means their trucks are going to be out of service for a whole week or two until the dealer can figure out how to do a repair (software or battery). Darren doesn't seem to realize how serious of an issue repair turnaround is to a fleet and how bad the EV repair situation is right now. Ford could lose a lot of business here with fed-up fleet owners when they realize Ford can't fix their EV products in a reasonable timeframe. We need to see more pressure from the very top on dealers to improve the repair experience.
  • UI update is coming, that will be a nice improvement hopefully.
  • Low speed acceleration/braking transitions are still problematic on the Ford EV's even with current software. I am dissatisfied with the lack of fine control every time I have to use the brake pedal on the Mach-E. People that pay attention (Tom M, Kyle Conner, etc) do notice it and it does need improvement because it is poor compared to other other brands. EV crossover customers especially will notice the poor feel coming from other EV brands.
  • The customer service and support on the Ford EVSEs is still very poor, which is why the general consensus here is to avoid them. Ford needs to improve issue reporting and release of corrective actions for their charger products.
  • The issue with the Chicago grid being out of frequency was interesting. Frequency might drop under load but shouldn't ever go below 57.5 Hz (that will cause a power outage). IIRC the issue was more so with high voltage above ANSI spec, (>254V).
  • Darren recommends most people charge to 90% daily, but Ford will still warranty the battery if you charge to 100% every day. If Ford decides to implement a 90% daily limit that could unlock additional capacity for occasional charging to 100% (basically it would allow the battery to charge to a higher voltage than we can now).
  • Self-opening doors would be nice, but I have serious doubts Ford could get that to work reliably without false-opens. That will probably take them 2-3 years of development work to perfect.
 
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Very insightful. Hopefully Ford does an interview with StateOfFrunkButton next.
 
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generaltso

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  • Low speed acceleration/braking transitions are still problematic on the Ford EV's even with current software. I am dissatisfied with the lack of fine control every time I have to use the brake pedal on the Mach-E. People that pay attention (Tom M, Kyle Conner, etc) do notice it and it does need improvement because it is poor compared to other other brands. EV crossover customers especially will notice the poor feel coming from other EV brands.
I agree with this. My wife's RAV4 Prime has blended braking, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot tell when the brake transitions from regen to friction. Yet, in the MME, it's quite obvious when it transitions and isn't nearly smooth enough. It was a little disheartening to hear Darren say that adjusting that calibration is trivial, but the only reason Tom was noticing it was because he's a "professional" EV driver. I hope that doesn't mean that they think the brake blending is good enough, because it still has a long way to go to match other manufacturers.
 

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I agree with this. My wife's RAV4 Prime has blended braking, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot tell when the brake transitions from regen to friction. Yet, in the MME, it's quite obvious when it transitions and isn't nearly smooth enough. It was a little disheartening to hear Darren say that adjusting that calibration is trivial, but the only reason Tom was noticing it was because he's a "professional" EV driver. I hope that doesn't mean that they think the brake blending is good enough, because it still has a long way to go to match other manufacturers.
Yeah I agree he didn't seem to think it was that important to correct or that most people would notice. Boo. I think it's bad enough to deserve medium priority, the powertrain calibration engineers need to go out and do some more work with it this year. Also do some 1PD creeps and stops on inclines and declines. But the first step is to get management to realize it's a problem that needs work.
 
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It's interesting that Darren is still using the GSM as an example of an obscure module that they can update OTA even though that module is on the short list of modules that cannot be updated OTA.
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