Update on Mach-E launch progress from engineering friends in Mexico

mamejunkie

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Can someone who regularly uses a WiFi Hotspot let me know what they find it most useful for? I am trying to understand the functionality of the WiFi Hotspot unless you are constantly on the road.
Wifi Hotspot is basically the ability to allow other devices such as iPad, smart phones to connect via wifi and access the internet. The main use case is probably either tables or phones with limited data plan. Most mobile carries offer the same functionality on the smart phones. My iPhone can do that and allow someone else to connect and use my mobile data connection.
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Wifi Hotspot is basically the ability to allow other devices such as iPad, smart phones to connect via wifi and access the internet. The main use case is probably either tables or phones with limited data plan. Most mobile carries offer the same functionality on the smart phones. My iPhone can do that and allow someone else to connect and use my mobile data connection.
I'm just thinking of the end of that 3rd month. I do not have AT&T and in this area it won't work for me so I am unlikely to change my cell phone plane to them. So I just don't know if I would want another cell plan.
 

mamejunkie

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I'm just thinking of the end of that 3rd month. I do not have AT&T and in this area it won't work for me so I am unlikely to change my cell phone plane to them. So I just don't know if I would want another cell plan.
My option in that these types of service is out like the Dodo birds. It doesn't really add much in terms of value for the $ (Locked to the car + more expensive). That's also why I hate the built in navigation of any cars. Gets out of date quick and doesn't have traffic. Using Android Auto or Apple Carplay, I get get the latest up to date maps and up to the minute traffic guidance. There are plenty of new home developments where I live so roads are added and maps changes consistently.
 

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Agreed. Typically use Sync3 for its Nav integration. Turn by turn on the driver info screen. Doubt TbyT will work in MME with Apple Maps. Run Waze on the phone for comparison. Pull it up if I care to use Waze routing.
Android Auto passes along turn by turn instructions to the head unit which then displays it on the instrument cluster, it has worked for me in the last few years, in my Honda Odyssey, as well as the Ford and GM vehicles I rented when on trips. Actually the first time I ever used Android Auto was on a rented Ford Expedition four years ago. Have little experience with CarPlay as my last iPhone died in 2015, on several occasions I had CarPlay running while in my van, turn by turn directions did not show on the instrument cluster, which just displayed a generic message like "CarPlay is active". Have never used CarPlay in vehicles of other makes, so I don't know if it is a limitation with Honda's implementation or Apple does not pass on that data to begin with.

It is a bit hit or miss sometimes, but voice commands work well enough for me in Android Auto. Previously I mostly used Google Play Music app to provide background music, but Google is retiring the service and folding it into YouTube Music, which is useless: it requires a paid subscription to be used in Android Auto - technically I can still start the playback on my phone and Android Auto will send the audio to the vehicle (as it does with any app), but it is pointless when I cannot interact with it by voice, through the vehicle's touchscreen, or skip a track using the steering wheel mounted control. So these days I am using Spotify as well as FLAC audio tracks on my phone. I am not a Waze fan and use Google Maps exclusively, but I know Waze is supported as well. In Honda's implementation, a short press on the voice command button on the steering wheel engages the car's infotainment system for voice recognition, a long press on the same button wakes Google Assistant/Siri instead, so the two systems are not mutually exclusive. In addition to navigation and music playback, my kids sometimes ask Google Assistant for answers to their questions, and on our way home on a cold day like today I ask it to start heating up the house.
 

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Can someone who regularly uses a WiFi Hotspot let me know what they find it most useful for? I am trying to understand the functionality of the WiFi Hotspot unless you are constantly on the road.
I have one in my van - started out at $20/month, then one day there was a promotion for $15/month and I asked for the lower price. It is used primarily by my kids for video streaming via an Amazon TV stick, to the 10-inch screen in the back. This year is different due to the pandemic, but in previous years they could use as much as 30GB a month. Even though my phone has unlimited data, there is a cap on tethering.

In my case the speed is limited (under 20 Mbps, usually in the single digits), partly due to high network latency given the way traffic is routed. When I last tried to trace route, it went through Jasper Technologies' data center on the West Coast, even though I live on the East Coast. For streaming it is fine; for work over VPN it is generally OK as well.

The trial is for 3GB or 3 months, whichever is reached first. If it is used for video streaming, the trial will last no more than a few days. When I took delivery of the van, it came with 2GB of dealer demo allotment, I signed up for the 3GB/3-month trial after that ran out.

I will not add a data plan when get a Mach-E. It will be my wife's daily driver and a data plan provides zero value. For long road trips we will take the van anyway, there is much more cargo space, kids can watch as much YouTube as they want, and there will be no range anxiety...
 
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sockmeister

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Can someone who regularly uses a WiFi Hotspot let me know what they find it most useful for? I am trying to understand the functionality of the WiFi Hotspot unless you are constantly on the road.
I activated my free demo while on a road trip out west (i.e., the USA western-most states), hoping that AT&T's data coverage in the Expedition would be better than T-Nowhere's data coverage on our cell phones. No such luck. But, for people who don't have AT&T that need an AT&T option that live near civilization, this might be a good option.
 

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Is the plant closed for Christmas Week?

Are any more cars being shipped now or is everything back on hold?

I just checked the status of all the dealer demo cars in my area. They are all produced, but none of them appear to have been shipped. Some of these were produced almost 7 weeks ago.

Or is SE Florida on an "embargo list"?!?!?!

Just trying to understand what is going on. It would be nice to take a test drive in a dealer demo vehicle!! The car my dealer ordered is exactly like mine, except for the color.

Obviously the next two months are going to be very long for me...............

?

Jim
 

SoCalPony

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I’d like to offer a perspective as a HUGE apple fanboy. My opinion of CarPlay? Meh. I’ve tried it a few times and prefer Sync 3 to CarPlay. The experience is smoother and more integrated. And I’ve cross checked Apple Maps routing against Sync routing and they’re usually identical with similar timing. Maybe if apple controlled the end-to-end platform, it would be a different thing, but honestly, the iPhone UI really isn’t optimized for a car, no matter how much you enlarge and simplify it. You have to “pay attention” to the iPhone UI. With Sync 3, I normally don’t fiddle with the UI. I use voice commands, or the hard buttons (volume, occasionally tune up/down to go to an adjacent SiriusXM station). I can’t comment on the Android infrastructure, I know nothing of it.
Have to echo what Jim said here. I tried using android auto several years ago in my Kia Soul EV. Granted, that was 3-4 years ago, and the Kia had a small screen, though larger than a phone screen. More trouble than it was worth. Took me nearly an hour to get it even functional. Then tried using it to play some podcasts. Very unwieldly user interface. The conclusions I came to were that: 1) The Kia software in general was pretty half baked with no real improvements coming over time, due to selling so few units (?), 2) Any time that you are getting two different computers to talk to each other over bluetooth, you are never going to get the same performance/reliability of using a native package on one computer, 3) rapid changes in technology and/or firmware updates (car/phone) often lead to you having to debug the entire system.

Hopefully things have gotten better in the intervening years. I just play music on USB or listen to the Sat radio.

I followed the Jaguar I-Pace rollout for a while. The performance of the audio system was so abysmal that some people just gave up or traded their cars in. Almost no one even uses that forum anymore, probably due to the low sales and user base.

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Is the plant closed for Christmas Week?

Are any more cars being shipped now or is everything back on hold?

I just checked the status of all the dealer demo cars in my area. They are all produced, but none of them appear to have been shipped. Some of these were produced almost 7 weeks ago.

Or is SE Florida on an "embargo list"?!?!?!

Just trying to understand what is going on. It would be nice to take a test drive in a dealer demo vehicle!! The car my dealer ordered is exactly like mine, except for the color.

Obviously the next two months are going to be very long for me...............

?

Jim
Yes the assembly line is closed this week. However, it is possible some cars may be shipped out during the week. Things will be back to full swing next Monday.

Dealer demo (FCTP) cars appear to mostly be in Cuautitlan still.
 
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methorian

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Yes the assembly line is closed this week. However, it is possible some cars may be shipped out during the week. Things will be back to full swing next Monday.

Dealer demo (FCTP) cars appear to all be in Cuautitlan still.
May not be the case in regards to all FCTP units. Here's a (assumed) stock unit from a local-ish dealer that has shipping info on FordTracker:
Ford Mustang Mach-E Update on Mach-E launch progress from engineering friends in Mexico 1609185713080
 

ChasingCoral

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May not be the case in regards to all FCTP units. Here's a (assumed) stock unit from a local-ish dealer that has shipping info on FordTracker:
Ford Mustang Mach-E Update on Mach-E launch progress from engineering friends in Mexico 1609185713080
Good point. I should have said mostly, not all. Not sure how that one slipped out but glad to see it did! I edited my prior post to "mostly".
 

methorian

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Good point. I should have said mostly, not all. Not sure how that one slipped out but glad to see it did! I edited my prior post to "mostly".
Yea, sorry - didn't mean to be nit-picky with semantics, but it seems some random FCTP's could have already made their way out.

That being said... No idea why Ford would ship one to a very small town in the middle-of-nowhere Virginia with a population of ~750, but logistics is funny business (as opposed to getting demo's to larger areas with way more interest in EVs).
 

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May not be the case in regards to all FCTP units. Here's a (assumed) stock unit from a local-ish dealer that has shipping info on FordTracker:
1609185713080.png
That ship date can't be right; it is from BEFORE OKTB. Per the insiders Ford is prioritizing customer cars over dealer demos.
 

ChasingCoral

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Yea, sorry - didn't mean to be nit-picky with semantics, but it seems some random FCTP's could have already made their way out.

That being said... No idea why Ford would ship one to a very small town in the middle-of-nowhere Virginia with a population of ~750, but logistics is funny business.
No, it was a good point to make.

[/QUOTE]
That ship date can't be right; it is from BEFORE OKTB. Per the insiders Ford is prioritizing customer cars over dealer demos.
I just noticed the same thing. This car probably has a very specific purpose for testing or promotions -- or was delivered to a Ford executive.
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