On board Navigation really that Bad??

[CRAIGC540]

I've seen many videos of the onboard navigation in use and they all seem to have bad experiences. Has anyone had a good experience with it? There has to be a setting for a preference for more highway or City streets and such. This guy had a very bad experience. There has to be someone with a positive review.

Sponsored

 

[sotek2345]

I use it off and on in our Mach-e and it has decently good results. You do get some real weirdness in estimated times sometimes (something do do with time zone since it adds a fixed number of hours), but the routes are usually OK.

The biggest issue I have seen is it not picking the best chargers on longer range trips (i.e. skipping over an EA station to hit a 50kW one), but for general or local travel, it has been fine.

 

[RickLightning]

Any in-vehicle navigation is worse than options out there like GoogleMaps. I don't watch most videos, so I didn't watch yours, but after a year of trying to use FordNav for trips I can tell you that it's not great.

A Better Route Planner is simply more flexible and smarter. Sure, the FordNav can handle some routes, but for others it's just not good. And, it has a bias towards local, even when you tell it the city. "Navigate to Walmart in XXXX, Michigan" brings up Walmarts no where near XXXX, Michigan". But, tell it "Navigate to Electrify America in XXXX, Michigan" (same exactly location), and it finds it. Maddening.

I plan my trips with ABRP on a desktop, and save it, which then is available on my phones/tablets. On a multi-stop multi-day trip, I export it to a spreadsheet, add links to each stop for Plugshare so I can check locations just before stops, and put that on GoogleDrive so anyone in the car can look.

 

[FlasherZ]

I use Waze on Android Auto. Haven't sprung for ABRP with live logging, but I've been told that will help in a charger-constrained environment.

 

[RickLightning]

ABRP works fine without live logging IMO.

 

[rdr854]

So far, I have had no issue with the Ford navigation. I can tell it where I want to go and it gets me there. I have not yet travelled far enough where I needed to recharge.

 

[CRAIGC540]

So far, I have had no issue with the Ford navigation. I can tell it where I want to go and it gets me there. I have not yet travelled far enough where I needed to recharge.

There you go.. The first positive for Fordnav, although you haven't gone on a long trip yet.

 

[beatle]

I think it's mostly good, but it has a few issues. On the good side It is very easy to see where you're supposed to go, and I think it's excellent at providing lane guidance. Navigation did completely disappear from the infotainment for the leg of one short trip though. Here are the gripes:

• Does not take into account elevation changes or predicted speeds when estimating charging stops. I did one leg of a trip where I stopped to charge in Bedford, PA around 39% and then went on my way to my destination at 85% or so. That was plenty to reach my destination, but I noticed the time was very long - much longer than ABRP. The second leg of my trip was at a much lower average speed and with less elevation increase than the first leg. Since the GOM thought my consumption was high, it figured the next leg would be just as bad and tried to put in a charging stop, so I turned off that "feature" to add in charging stops as needed. It just isn't smart enough to do it properly.
• It does not display your estimated range or battery percentage at arrival so you can't gauge whether you might need to stop earlier (or later). Unexpected weather changes can really mess up the original calculation.
• Cannot seem to simply navigate to a charging station. I told it to navigate to the Electrify America station in Bedford, PA, but it only displayed EA stations near me.
• Does not always respect your desire to avoid toll roads. It tried to route me onto the PA turnpike even though toll roads was checked as an avoidance. Fortunately I was able to use Google Navigation as a backup.

Using Waze and ABRP via Android Auto were not good experiences. They're just not reliable. Waze would not show me my next turn and I could not cancel the navigation. I also could not see the alerts on screen. ABRP has freaked out a couple times and cannot track me via GPS, or it simply repeats the same turning prompt until I disconnect AA from the truck.

 

[sotek2345]

I think it's mostly good, but it has a few issues. On the good side It is very easy to see where you're supposed to go, and I think it's excellent at providing lane guidance. Navigation did completely disappear from the infotainment for the leg of one short trip though. Here are the gripes:

• Does not take into account elevation changes or predicted speeds when estimating charging stops. I did one leg of a trip where I stopped to charge in Bedford, PA around 39% and then went on my way to my destination at 85% or so. That was plenty to reach my destination, but I noticed the time was very long - much longer than ABRP. The second leg of my trip was at a much lower average speed and with less elevation increase than the first leg. Since the GOM thought my consumption was high, it figured the next leg would be just as bad and tried to put in a charging stop, so I turned off that "feature" to add in charging stops as needed. It just isn't smart enough to do it properly.
• It does not display your estimated range or battery percentage at arrival so you can't gauge whether you might need to stop earlier (or later). Unexpected weather changes can really mess up the original calculation.
• Cannot seem to simply navigate to a charging station. I told it to navigate to the Electrify America station in Bedford, PA, but it only displayed EA stations near me.
• Does not always respect your desire to avoid toll roads. It tried to route me onto the PA turnpike even though toll roads was checked as an avoidance. Fortunately I was able to use Google Navigation as a backup.

Using Waze and ABRP via Android Auto were not good experiences. They're just not reliable. Waze would not show me my next turn and I could not cancel the navigation. I also could not see the alerts on screen. ABRP has freaked out a couple times and cannot track me via GPS, or it simply repeats the same turning prompt until I disconnect AA from the truck.

For longer trips I use ABRP to plan the route and identify the charging stops, then use Google maps to navigate to them one at a time (new route after each stop). Not elegant, but it works well.

 

[monsterlag]

Y’all using Ford navigation need Jesus in yo lives.

 

[Firestop]

I’ve been using OBD-linked ABRP route (verified by PlugShare reviews), auto-importing my route into Waze on wireless CarPlay, with no big issues. I can run both programs concurrently switching back/forth to get current & projected SoC in ABRP using real-time weather & elevation impacts, while getting traffic alerts from Waze (Waze will pop up alerts while I’m in ABRP).

 

[Beaux]

I think it's fine. I prefer Google maps or Waze but when I'm on a long enough trip to need to charge I like the integration of the Ford nav. It locates chargers for you (I still double check plug share ect) and it gives you how many miles to your destination vs miles of charge left on your instrument cluster.

 

[CRAIGC540]

For longer trips I use ABRP to plan the route and identify the charging stops, then use Google maps to navigate to them one at a time (new route after each stop). Not elegant, but it works well.

This sounds like what I will do for navigation.

 

[adoublee]

I feel like it only takes one or two really bad routings before all faith is lost. It tried to do me real bad in a small town (wanted to take me to a different town) which was the last straw for me. It isn't even good a picking charging locations so what is the use?

 

[Lightning.Dav]

I’ve been using OBD-linked ABRP route (verified by PlugShare reviews), auto-importing my route into Waze on wireless CarPlay, with no big issues. I can run both programs concurrently switching back/forth to get current & projected SoC in ABRP using real-time weather & elevation impacts, while getting traffic alerts from Waze (Waze will pop up alerts while I’m in ABRP).

@Firestop Sorry to be dense here, but I'm finding ABRP difficult to use.

When you say you are using OBD linked ABRP, do you mean ABRP is running on the truck, or your phone? What OBD dongle do you have? Connecting over bluetooth or BLE?

I can't even save ABRP routes, how do you auto-import them to Waze? And again, "wireless carplay", is this the truck? Bluetooth?

Switching back and forth, on the center panel or your phone app?

Again, apologies for not understanding this stuff. Truck is being built today! So I can't experiment. So far I can create an ABRP route on my PC and see it in ABRP on my phone. But no Waze integration yet.

Sponsored