List the features needed to make the Ford Nav something you WANT to use

[RocketGhost]

I rented a Tesla for a road trip once. Plug in your destination, it routes you to Superchargers as necessary and tell you how long to charge at each one. Effortless and you don't have to think.

I took my Lightning on a road trip. I manually researched and chose charging stations beforehand, even using a spreadsheet to calculate how much I needed to charge at each one. I picked an alternate station in case one was unavailable and made sure I'd have enough charge to get there.

Electrify America was garbage. Got lucky a couple times. One station was completely out of order. Another only had one stall working. Also used a Chargepoint, only two stalls but they were open, however charge rate was slow. Francis Energy station was great, no one there and fast. And I stopped at two Superchargers with Magic Docks. Only problem was one adapter wouldn't release, so I moved to the next one. With 16 stalls and few in use, it was no problem.

Moral of this story is that you cannot rely on the nav to pick charging stations for you, unless it's Tesla Superchargers. For the Ford nav to be useful, I want to tell it a destination and only select Superchargers. I could trust it then. Of course I want the option to manually select a different alternate station.

One thing that the nav in Teslas lack that's extremely important is the ability to choose a minimum charge % on arrival to a station and destination. If my destination is a cabin in the woods, the Tesla nav will get you there but with a low charge and you won't have enough to get back to a charging station. It assumes you can charge at your destination. A workaround is to have the ability to set your home is the origin and destination and the cabin in the woods as a waypoint. But that also doesn't take into account putting around town while you're at the cabin.

I used Apple Maps on my last trip and manually input addresses for charging stations. I like the interface much better than the Ford nav.

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[FirstF150InCasco]

Everyone is suggesting changes vis-a-vis the CHARGING functionality. Fine, but I don't use the Ford navigation because it lacks the basic NAVIGATION functionality that is contained in Waze. This includes traffic alerts, accidents, police speed traps, etc.

Before the Super Charger network was openend to Fords, when I planned a long trip I mapped out charger locations myself, including backup chargers. Now with the Super Charger network, I don't worry about charging any more. Charging is no longer an issue.

No matter how much Ford might improve the CHARGING functionality in their app, I'll only switch when Ford adds all of the NAVIGATION functionality of Waze.

 

[Danface]

Privacy ... LOL

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

I rented a Tesla for a road trip once. Plug in your destination, it routes you to Superchargers as necessary and tell you how long to charge at each one. Effortless and you don't have to think.

I took my Lightning on a road trip. I manually researched and chose charging stations beforehand, even using a spreadsheet to calculate how much I needed to charge at each one. I picked an alternate station in case one was unavailable and made sure I'd have enough charge to get there.

Electrify America was garbage. Got lucky a couple times. One station was completely out of order. Another only had one stall working. Also used a Chargepoint, only two stalls but they were open, however charge rate was slow. Francis Energy station was great, no one there and fast. And I stopped at two Superchargers with Magic Docks. Only problem was one adapter wouldn't release, so I moved to the next one. With 16 stalls and few in use, it was no problem.

Moral of this story is that you cannot rely on the nav to pick charging stations for you, unless it's Tesla Superchargers. For the Ford nav to be useful, I want to tell it a destination and only select Superchargers. I could trust it then. Of course I want the option to manually select a different alternate station.

One thing that the nav in Teslas lack that's extremely important is the ability to choose a minimum charge % on arrival to a station and destination. If my destination is a cabin in the woods, the Tesla nav will get you there but with a low charge and you won't have enough to get back to a charging station. It assumes you can charge at your destination. A workaround is to have the ability to set your home is the origin and destination and the cabin in the woods as a waypoint. But that also doesn't take into account putting around town while you're at the cabin.

I used Apple Maps on my last trip and manually input addresses for charging stations. I like the interface much better than the Ford nav.

I agree withe every point you made. Thanks for taking the time to write it up so clearly.

 

[davehu]

but what if they drop the Ford Nav and begin charging us for Android Auto?

 

[02Reaper]

How did you turn not expecting an overhaul to "cutting support"?

They'll tweak it. They won't reinvent it.

You stated a soon to be obsolete product. Once something is obsolete there's no support at all.

 

[invertedspear]

Integration into the MyView screen. It's fine that we get the upcoming turns to show up on the gauge cluster, but actually having the map show there would be better. My eyes are far closer to the road than if I glance at the infotainment screen. The only feature I liked in the polestar.

I also want an app where my passenger can grab my phone and add stops or change destinations easily, just like they do when using apple or google maps. Oh, and a major reason I don't use it is that there's no way I'm going to pay for the subscription, so why learn to like it now if I'm not going to have it when the trial runs out?

 

[htobin]

This topic is very pertinent to me right now. We are trying to make a future plan for a drive from Abilene, Texas to Scottsdale,

We would like to plan some of the route along historic route 66

None of the mapping programs that I can find are very effect affective at showing recharging information on future routes that start from a position other than where you are currently located.

Any suggestions that would help us in that type of planning would certainly be appreciated. While we’re on the road, we don’t seem to have any difficulty finding information about charging stations. It’s only when future planning.

 

[trailcat]

Unless it can already be done and I'm just oblivious on how to do it, it would be nice to route to either a set of coordinates or to just mark a spot on the map to route to.

There are many destinations without an address where routing to coordinates would be helpful.

 

[invertedspear]

This topic is very pertinent to me right now. We are trying to make a future plan for a drive from Abilene, Texas to Scottsdale,

We would like to plan some of the route along historic route 66

None of the mapping programs that I can find are very effect affective at showing recharging information on future routes that start from a position other than where you are currently located.

Any suggestions that would help us in that type of planning would certainly be appreciated. While we’re on the road, we don’t seem to have any difficulty finding information about charging stations. It’s only when future planning.

Honestly, you're probably overthinking. Use plugshare and the Tesla "FindUs" maps to find chargers you can use (Plugshare is not great about identifying which SCs are open to us and which aren't). Make sure the route you want to take has chargers no more further apart than the ACTUAL HIGHWAY range of your truck. In an ER, that's more like 250 miles, and that distance is still a bit of an ass-clincher sometimes depending on wind or elevation changes. An SR is maybe 175? I dunno, no experience with SRs. Then when you're actually taking the trip, use the navigation or Apple Maps or Google Maps to determine how much charge you need to make it to the next charger. Give yourself a good 10%+ of buffer, then be on your way.

I know you're probably focusing on the journey and not the destination, but to hit Historic 66 routes, you're going way out of your way, at least up to Amarillo first. I'm willing to bet you'll have a rough time finding DCFC on 66 that doesn't also service I-40 trafic as well.

FWIW, I know from experience you can get there via the I-10 even without SC access. Well, as long as you can make it to Midland first since that's where I started. I did have to shut off climate control a little bit to make it to El Paso, just because I didn't give myself enough buffer for that leg.

 

[Scorpio3d]

Everyone is suggesting changes vis-a-vis the CHARGING functionality. Fine, but I don't use the Ford navigation because it lacks the basic NAVIGATION functionality that is contained in Waze. This includes traffic alerts, accidents, police speed traps, etc.

Before the Super Charger network was openend to Fords, when I planned a long trip I mapped out charger locations myself, including backup chargers. Now with the Super Charger network, I don't worry about charging any more. Charging is no longer an issue.

No matter how much Ford might improve the CHARGING functionality in their app, I'll only switch when Ford adds all of the NAVIGATION functionality of Waze.

The thing you have to realize, especially with Apple and Google, and I believe Waze They get their data from all the other phones(Devices) in your vehicles while you are driving. Ford is trying to be a technology company without investing any money In (Software development )supporting that technology IMO.

 

[davehu]

I'm just saying we've always assumed that AA will be free. I no longer make that assumption. maybe, maybe not.

 

[cwstnsko]

We can start with a screenshot of the best I have found to date.
1) Auto plans routes, with charging stops, including whichever networks you want to use and excluding those you don’t
2) Dramatically more accurate prediction of state of charge at arrival to charger, displayed front and center, along with current state of charge with both updating in real time
3) Show the status of the next charger in the route. Number of stalls, how many available, charger speed rating, updated frequently.
4) Both Speed limit and current speed
5) Satellite view as an option is nice to have
6) ETA, time and distance left for both next stop and final destination
7) Exit information
8) Traffic, weather, elevation and speed factored in and updated frequently
Things not obvious from the screenshot
9) Define state of charge target for stops and for destination. Define max state of charge to charge to at stops for planning.
10) Make it easy to choose alternate chargers to those in the plan (ARBP needs improvement here)
11)Ability to define how fast you intend to drive for planning purposes.
12) charging stats visible while charing.
13) Ability to review alternate routes, with summary data and choose preferred route.
14) automatic re-routing with explanation as to why re-routing is needed.
15)Ability to have alternate vehicle configurations, such as trailer towing
16) Ability to avoid specific stations in route planning
17) Ability to plan route on phone/tablet and send planned route to vehicle.
18) Ability to re-route around Tesla chargers that are more than half full, knowing how Tesla drivers tend to park

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