Power-Up OTA 6.8.0 - Smart Changes: Center Screen

[Big J’s 23 Lightning]

Yes, Lightning. Yes, there are a couple of threads on this forum regarding the 12v battery. The small 12V battery and Ford's charging strategy are inadequate for its purpose for folks who do not drive an hour or more daily. The 12v battery spends much of its time between 50%-80% SOC which is not ideal for an AGM battery and can cause premature failure like in my case (and many others).

Here is a 12v health check that may give you some insight:

• Sign on to Ford.com and check your LVB SOC (I learned this today from the great folks on this forum). It should be above 50%.
• Turn the truck on for an hour and then check the 12v SOC again on Ford.com. It should be 100% or close to it. If it doesn't get to 100% in 1-1.5 hours you may have an issue with the health of the 12v battery or the BMS may be out of whack (there are instructions on this forum regarding resetting the BMS)
• Let the truck sit off for an hour and check the SOC again on Ford.com. A healthy battery should be above 90% after an hour (probably 95% or so)
• Let the truck sit off for an additional 6-8 hours (not plugged in) and check the SOC again on Ford.com. A healthy battery should lose no more than about 10%-15% during the 6-8 hours so it should be around 75%-80% or more (assuming you have no aftermarket devices sucking on it)

I went on Ford.com. How do I find any health info on the 12v battery? Thanks for all the info!!!

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[Adventureboy]

I went on Ford.com. How do I find any health info on the 12v battery? Thanks for all the info!!!

Sign in with your account info by clicking the icon in the top right:

Go to your account at the top (not vehicle dashboard):

You should see this:

The Charge Level is the 12V SOC. (obviously mine has failed)

 

[Jim Lewis]

but calling a vehicle with several interconnected parts with individual processors a "computer" and comparing it to windows and a laptop is so far off the mark I wouldn't know where to start.

I bet there's a lot more code that goes into Windows than goes into a Ford truck. And Microsoft certainly provides more info about and handles for controlling updates than Ford.

Bing ChatGTP4 answer on relative number of "software engineers" at MS and Ford. MS dwarfs Ford in that category. https://sl.bing.net/iVpyF2QLbky

There are an estimated 50 to 80 million lines of code in Windows 10. I think you have the inappropriateness of the comparison the wrong way round. Do you think the Lightning has 50 million lines of code behind it?

 

[invertedspear]

I bet there's a lot more code that goes into Windows than goes into a Ford truck. And Microsoft certainly provides more info about and handles for controlling updates than Ford.

Bing ChatGTP4 answer on relative number of "software engineers" at MS and Ford. MS dwarfs Ford in that category. https://sl.bing.net/iVpyF2QLbky

There are an estimated 50 to 80 million lines of code in Windows 10. I think you have the inappropriateness of the comparison the wrong way round. Do you think the Lightning has 50 million lines of code behind it?

If you've ever worked in software, you would know that lines of code is a meaningless metric. Especially when comparing the high level languages they use at MS and presumably the low level languages they use on car modules.

Computers are purpose built to compute. Cars are purpose built to move. Computer components all use the same architecture and a limited set of interface systems (USB, PCIe, etc), car modules are individually running very different architectures and communicate in much more rudimentary ways.

Why would you compare a count of software engineers at Ford with MS? Is Ford making OS's, productivity software and flight simulators?

Look, Ford has issues, I'm not trying to defend that. But expecting them to dedicate the same resources to car software that a software company does is just silly. You might as well compare the number of welders at MS and Ford, or aerodynamic specialists. It doesn't make sense to do so.

 

[Jim Lewis]

Why would you compare a count of software engineers at Ford with MS? Is Ford making OS's, productivity software and flight simulators?

The number of software engineers is a metric of how much work goes into building a product. One could say that the per year effort to build Windows relative to the effort to build a Ford product has to be reduced because Windows has been over 30 to 40 years in the making compared to the much smaller span of years Ford has put into the current electronics in their vehicles (by saying "it's all standardized in the computer industry," you're cavalierly dismissing decades of heavy-duty software/firmware engineering). But OTH, if you integrate what's gone into Windows over the years, it dwarfs Ford's software engineering efforts on the Lightning. And, yes, MS Flight Simulator and MS 365 must be worked into and accommodated by Windows. I'm an MS Flight Simulator enthusiast, and the deeper you go into that, the more involved you have to be with how Windows and its settings, the peripherals, and the GPU interact with MSFS. Microsoft has built features into Windows to support that. I can tune the performance of my NVIDIA RTX-3090 GPU and my HP Reverb G2 mixed reality headset for flying in VR through the Windows interface-I have to for the optimal experience. PC Gaming is a big part of Windows, as is enterprise productivity through MS 365 and all the apps derived from that, e.g. Teams. All that has to just work out of the box. Also, if you're a Windows user, you may have noticed more and more of the drivers used in Windows are now designed by Microsoft, not third-party peripheral makers like printer OEMs. After Print Nightmare, where printer OEMs created drivers more interested in selling you printer ink than being secure, Microsoft said enough of this. It started creating more universal drivers that are much more secure than third parties are willing (or able) to invest the effort in making. Ford's problem is the opposite. With the Lightning, you say yourself, it's relying on third parties... So that's Ford's problem. It's a rinky-dink company compared to Microsoft and doesn't have all that many resources to apply where it counts and it didn't make the effort to get everything standardized. It preferred to economize and rush to market and we're driving the result (when we're not in the shop for a battery module replacement).

Maybe the Ford Lightning is a complex problem in computer science, not because it's really more complex than Windows, but because it's a relatively uncoordinated mishmash of assembled parts.

Your analogy about how complex the Ford Lightning is compared to Windows ignores the zillions of peripherals and internal components you can use with a Windows computer. You can say it's all a standardized interface, ignoring the work that went into arriving at standards for all the different types of peripherals and connectivity interfaces that have come and gone. But that's where Windows succeeds, and Ford fails. Saying something is "standardized" is just a way of dismissing the immense complexity built into Windows while praising the disorganization built into Lightning as "complexity" and some sort of achievement.

"The marvel is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all."

 

[davehu]

Yes - first time. Glad to finally get it. From July until about September I had connectivity problems with my modem and the engineering team finally got that fixed which is probably why I missed it.

connectivity issues likely had nothing to with it. My Lariat ER was built in February, delivered to me in September and I'm still on 4.22. (in fact that was updated to that only a month ago) as I've posted in several threads there seems to be no pattern on how/who/when these updates are delivered.

 

[daveross1212]

I disagree quite a bit. There are plenty of systems out there (built by companies with way less resources than Ford) that compose a vastly larger "number of modules", written in different languages, deployed on different platforms, etc - and as a cohesive system do not nearly have the number of defects/unforced-errors as what we are seeing on these trucks. It's simple and obvious amateur hours, with a lack of investment in comprehensive Q/A. In my experience this happens when software development projects go to numerous "lowest bidder" 3rd parties that are dis-incentivized from delivering something that works and/or is maintainable (because lack of maintainability = more revenue / SOWs for the 3rd party in the future).

The number of software engineers is a metric of how much work goes into building a product. One could say that the per year effort to build Windows relative to the effort to build a Ford product has to be reduced because Windows has been over 30 to 40 years in the making compared to the much smaller span of years Ford has put into the current electronics in their vehicles (by saying "it's all standardized in the computer industry," you're cavalierly dismissing decades of heavy-duty software/firmware engineering). But OTH, if you integrate what's gone into Windows over the years, it dwarfs Ford's software engineering efforts on the Lightning. And, yes, MS Flight Simulator and MS 365 must be worked into and accommodated by Windows. I'm an MS Flight Simulator enthusiast, and the deeper you go into that, the more involved you have to be with how Windows and its settings, the peripherals, and the GPU interact with MSFS. Microsoft has built features into Windows to support that. I can tune the performance of my NVIDIA RTX-3090 GPU and my HP Reverb G2 mixed reality headset for flying in VR through the Windows interface-I have to for the optimal experience. PC Gaming is a big part of Windows, as is enterprise productivity through MS 365 and all the apps derived from that, e.g. Teams. All that has to just work out of the box. Also, if you're a Windows user, you may have noticed more and more of the drivers used in Windows are now designed by Microsoft, not third-party peripheral makers like printer OEMs. After Print Nightmare, where printer OEMs created drivers more interested in selling you printer ink than being secure, Microsoft said enough of this. It started creating more universal drivers that are much more secure than third parties are willing (or able) to invest the effort in making. Ford's problem is the opposite. With the Lightning, you say yourself, it's relying on third parties... So that's Ford's problem. It's a rinky-dink company compared to Microsoft and doesn't have all that many resources to apply where it counts and it didn't make the effort to get everything standardized. It preferred to economize and rush to market and we're driving the result (when we're not in the shop for a battery module replacement).

Maybe the Ford Lightning is a complex problem in computer science, not because it's really more complex than Windows, but because it's a relatively uncoordinated mishmash of assembled parts.

Your analogy about how complex the Ford Lightning is compared to Windows ignores the zillions of peripherals and internal components you can use with a Windows computer. You can say it's all a standardized interface, ignoring the work that went into arriving at standards for all the different types of peripherals and connectivity interfaces that have come and gone. But that's where Windows succeeds, and Ford fails. Saying something is "standardized" is just a way of dismissing the immense complexity built into Windows while praising the disorganization built into Lightning as "complexity" and some sort of achievement.

"The marvel is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all."

 

[Jim Lewis]

In between invidiously comparing Lightning engineering to Windows engineering, I went to the garage to check software updates. The DC Fast Charging Priority Update ...CHG3 apparently tried to reinstall itself and failed (NOT COMPLETE), whereas the first try on 12/13/23 was supposedly a success. Before I could get a screenshot of the CHG3 NOT COMPLETE notice, Power Up 6.8 started downloading. The Update Now option failed 2x with my LVB at 73% SOC (again, only the FordPass alert mentioned LVB voltage as a factor; the Sync screen told me nothing beyond powering off the truck, closing everything, exiting, and locking the vehicle). After I had charged the LVB to 82% SOC by running the truck, 6.8 succeeded. I now have the HVB numerical % SOC displayed in the circular battery gauge on the left of my Tire Pressure screen and the Speed Limit sign reader is now to the left of the dash speedometer . Tire pressure readings temporarily got zapped, and I'm recharging the LVB in hopes of Santa delivering 6.13 for Christmas. My LVB SOC dropped to 72% during the update.

 

[COrocket]

Not to brag…but according to Ford this update gave me a fresh 100% oil life and it boosted my tire pressure to over 9000 PSI. I’m impressed!

 

[TaxmanHog]

Up next:

 

[The Weatherman]

Up next:

Hey we’re on the same track now. I just updated to 6.8.0 as well.

We might see BC 1.3 before next year yet. After all we still have 11 days for Ford to make good on their promise of ‘by year end.’

 

[wapple24]

Got 6.5.0 2 days ago and 6.8.0 today. So glad to finally have SOC on the dashboard,. That was an update I missed due to an APIM issue/replacement. Looking forward to getting 6.13.0 soon...

 

[msadan]

This is my fourth update in less than two weeks, and the first ever that's failed. Dusted off my trusty 1980s vintage Western Auto battery charger to give the 12 volt battery a boost. That charger may be the closest thing I have to a family heirloom

 

[BSull]

It seems my truck finally got into the update queue. I went from somewhere south of 6.2 a couple of weeks ago to 6.2, 6.5, and today 6.8. Maybe if I hold my tongue just right I'll get 6.13 before the end of the year.

 

[VTRedWingsFan]

6.5 yesterday. 6.8.0 just a few minutes ago. On a roll!!

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