Ford Motor Company has the MOST sophisticated OTA update system...???

[invertedspear]

The A/B partition thing is great, when it works, and is actually pretty cool because I don't think the MachE had it at launch. They added this functionality with... an OTA. The problem is that it's not making things more reliable or address the core problem we're all having which is a complete lack of updates. I wonder if it's also part of the problem. If you partition a drive you now have less drive space on each partition, and maybe now they have to figure out how to get an OTA work with half the storage space. Now you can't do any broad sweeping update, you have to break it out to smaller incremental updates, and sometimes that gets really difficult. Further, the FoMoCo EVs are not controlled by a central computer like Teslas, they still distribute to several modules throughout the truck/car. Those modules likely can't all do A/B partitioning. All of this added complexity is likely adding a large chunk to the time it takes to plan and package updates. Reliability absolutely must trump complexity and cleverness.

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[BlueLightning]

Sure if you drive a Limited or Platinum. lol.

 

[Maineiac12]

I’m glad the updates are so great, but Ford needs to actually start sending them now. And they’d know this if they actually paid attention to the forums or social media at all.

 

[Monkey]

I think someone has equated "sophisticated" with complex and confusing.

It works 98% of the time, 80% of the times that it attempts an update of the 40% of the time the update is scheduled out of the 60% of the times it should be scheduled. Any questions?

Oh, and the above 98% success rate on actual install attempts only applies if your LVB is optimally charged, even though the BMS is directly responsible for maintaining its charge in accordance with what the truck needs. But apparently charging the LVB to an optimal level before attempting to install the impending update is too complicated for Ford’s software team to work out. It might even be almost as complicated as having Dog Mode or remembering our selected drive modes. But we’ll get all these things eventually. Have Faith. Farley just announced today that within 2 years we’ll be able to take our eyes off the road while BlueCruise is active. yeah… right…

 

[Mashedtators]

Does anyone have an insight as to why the Tesla/Rivian update process isn’t what Ford should move to?

 

[Pioneer74]

Does anyone have an insight as to why the Tesla/Rivian update process isn’t what Ford should move to?

Because Ford outsourced a bunch of work Tesla and Rivian do in-house.

 

[SmoothJ]

Having that type of redundancy is a really good idea, especially in a vehicle.

The same idea is deployed on numerous computer systems that we have on-prem.

The trick is the automation of unpacking the update to a new partition, copy the configs/logs, set the new partition as primary, and then rebooting.

 

[Bills R Electric]

Sounds like great a great advancement, too bad they are not using it and sending out OTAs...

I must have missed my BlueCruise update for my Lightning that has been coming soon for about a year now....

Maybe next month!

 

[rg7]

Does anyone have an insight as to why the Tesla/Rivian update process isn’t what Ford should move to?

I suspect unions hold back Ford from getting good in house software developers. Unions really kill innovation and protect bad workers, despite what good they may do otherwise.

 

[Pioneer74]

I suspect unions hold back Ford from getting good in house software developers. Unions really kill innovation and protect bad workers, despite what good they may do otherwise.

Salaried employees at Ford aren't unionized.

 

[Calvin H-C]

I use seeing my experiences with my FFE coming to fruition with the Lightning.

I used to thing that since the FFE was a "compliance car" Ford would learn from their mistakes and do things better with vehicles like the MME and Lightning. I'm not so sure.

When the FFE got its modem upgraded to 4G, the TCU software version at the time was buggy and features like value charging schedules and cabin reconditioning Go-Times were lost. It took six months for this to be fixed, but my vehicle did not get it OTA as some did. Dealerships could do it for a price, which I finally paid to get the features back. I'm fighting Ford to get the $160 charge back that should not have been necessary if they just did the right thing.

I've also found out a week ago that there was an update to Sync 3, but my vehicle's "check for new updated" function would just get stuck searching. I had to do the download and put it on a USB drive thing to update it.

Just a few things to look forward to with our Lightnings.

 

[Sedawk]

Does anyone have an insight as to why the Tesla/Rivian update process isn’t what Ford should move to?

Everyone here is speculating ... I don't know why. Jim Farley has addressed this issue head on. The TLDR is that Ford tried to save a couple hundred bucks by outsourcing too much - it means you have hundreds of companies involved in software interactions with nearly every truck component creating a programming nightmare. 'Sophisticated" in this case means needlessly complex and it was simply moronic in the original article to spin it the way they did.

Here is the video:

 

[Toby57]

Because Ford outsourced a bunch of work Tesla and Rivian do in-house.

Maybe it is Google. Ford got in bed with Google, I don't know when. Did Tesla and Rivian work a deal with Google also?

 

[Formerly]

I suspect unions hold back Ford from getting good in house software developers. Unions really kill innovation and protect bad workers, despite what good they may do otherwise.

Yikes. So much misinformation in one post, it's like you copied and pasted something from Twitter

 

[Lytning]

"Can you guess which automaker has the most sophisticated over-the-air software update capability in the United States market as of 2024?"

You have to read the above as if a politician or lawyer were the author.

The operative weasel-word is "has".

It does not state the capability has actually been deployed, or that it actually works.

They just "has" it.

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