The Lightning’s Native Nav is Worthless

[VAF84]

This was a huge gripe of mine when I had the car. Honestly, all EV's just need a precondition button. At some point it will be easier for phone maps to guide the driver, and the driver should be able to activate preconditioning as needed. As the OP found, I gave up on the native OEM apps long ago.

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[02Reaper]

I'm wondering when Ford will release an update to NAV?

It's been mentioned in the past that the charger list would be updated, I'm suspecting they're punting this allowing the charge assist app to fill the need, of course that has quirks as well.

This weekend I was in a situation that the only thing that would work was the Native Navigation. It was in a bigger city and apparently the mobile system was overwhelmed so Apple maps wouldn't work and charge assist wouldn't work. Too bad the native navigation is so out of date.

 

[Kev12345]

Is Ford not aware of their lacklustre nav system? Do they think its good?
Do they know how good Tesla nav is in comparison?
Do they think we DON'T compare Ford Nav to Tesla?
Is there one guy working on software updates at Ford?
Can Ford not afford a competent team of software engineers?
Why karaoke?
Why does Ford Nav still suck years later?

 

[21st Century Truck]

I actually prefer Ford NAV and use it all the time. It took us all over the USA, coast to coast and then some (in our now-gone Mach E).

Like any program, the NAV has its quirks and it takes time and a bit of effort to learn its strengths. Yes, it does have some strengths.

I like that it's built-in and gets me off my smartphone

This reminds me a bit of the old word processor preference wars.. "WordPerfect vs. Word". Our Earth is big enough to allow us each our own choice, to include (gasp) paper atlas maps.

 

[Albern]

The SYNC 4 Navigation does indeed have problems and the design decisions made are unusual, but to call it "worthless" is a statement of absolutes and is not helpful if we are to expect Ford to do a significant enough of an update to make the application usable.

Part of why I chose a Lightning over other trucks was because Ford made the decision to bring more software in-house and provide a native solution. As vehicles move to electrification which means greater compute and digitization, software capabilities will be necessary for an OEM to survive the 21st century. Any OEM that relies on 3rd party solutions like CarPlay and Android Auto are merely using a crutch of a solution and are choosing not to innovate.

SYNC 4 has a most of the information, telemetry, and data readily available but needs to do better on both the UI side and database updates whenever a new charger (even just adding Tesla Superchargers) becomes available.

On the UI side, I strongly believe that a style guideline change is necessary so that critical information like battery % SOC on arrival isn't burred 3-layers in. There is also opportunity to optimize for a lot of the white space and wasted space across the 2 screens. Essentially, an app should not have to take up the whole 2/3rds of the screen - e.g. energy consumption breakdown, when it could just be a significantly smaller information card.

Finally a consolidation of applications needs to occur. For example, the public charging search app should be integrated into the navigation. This as a standalone app should not have existed given that users would search by navigating across a map, rather than finding a charger via a look-up table.

Finally, if memory and compute capacity is required - delete the games and boot-up videos.

This isn't a comprehensive list but I believe this represents at a very high level how the software team should go about making SYNC work and what to prioritize accordingly.

@Ford Motor Company

 

[Maquis]

I actually prefer Ford NAV and use it all the time. It took us all over the USA, coast to coast and then some (in our now-gone Mach E).

Like any program, the NAV has its quirks and it takes time and a bit of effort to learn its strengths. Yes, it does have some strengths.

I like that it's built-in and gets me off my smartphone

This reminds me a bit of the old word processor preference wars.. "WordPerfect vs. Word". Our Earth is big enough to allow us each our own choice, to include (gasp) paper atlas maps.

Agreed. As long as you’re aware of its quirks and limitations, it’s at least “serviceable.”

 

[FloridaMan655321]

I still don't know how to use Ford's nav. I've tried a couple times, but it's while sitting at a stop light, and since I couldn't figure it out in that time, I used Apple Maps each time. Kind of realize how a design is if I can do it on Apple Maps in under 30 seconds, but can't figure it out on Ford in 60+ seconds.

With this said, Apple Maps isn't ideal at all. You can't choose which charger to use, and when you pass the charger it wants you to visit, it keep trying to turn you around....50+ miles later and I'm charging and it still wants me to turn around. Just have to disconnect and start a new route to your destination. I contacted Apple to tell them how easy/nice it would be to just choose my charger when I'm planning the route. Hopefully in the future.....

I've never used Tesla, but I can see how it would be easy-ish to be better. I wonder if this whole system is kind of a slap on to whatever Microsoft presented them. I know Tesla developed their system from Linux, so they developed from the ground up vs having something presented by a larger company. Every decent OS/touchscreen seems to be developed on either Linux or BSD.

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

The Native App is useless, IMAO. 1. It doesn't have the real-time traffic / construction / police data that Waze has. 2. It tries to send me into the woods when I go to our camp in Maine; the route of the road was changed during the Truman administration, but the Ford app doesn't yet recongize the route change.

 

[climateguy]

I use an old tiny screen Garmin GPS that sits on my dashboard next to this useless to me Ford 15 inch screen. The Garmin will update its maps for free for the life of the device. I plan where to charge using my laptop prior to leaving on a trip. I like this truck, but the software leaves a lot to be desired. I look at the mostly unused huge Ford 15 inch screen as a big PITA.

 

[PrimeRisk]

Is Ford not aware of their lacklustre nav system?

No, they're aware.

Do they think its good?

They think it is good enough so they can advertise that it's in the vehicle. No one tell them that including an atlas in the glove box would technically be "Navigation Assistance Included".

Do they know how good Tesla nav is in comparison?

Yes, but they do not care.

Do they think we DON'T compare Ford Nav to Tesla?

No, they know, they just don't care.

Is there one guy working on software updates at Ford?

One. An offshore, entry-level position that is 50% Ford Nav and 50% Crowdstrike tester.

Can Ford not afford a competent team of software engineers?

Apparently not, they're attempting to turn it into a profit center by making you pay for it in 2024+ models. You get a free trial, but if you don't pay afterwards they take it away completely.

Why karaoke?

To distract you from how much the Nav system sucks.

Why does Ford Nav still suck years later?

Again, they don't care. More and more people use nav apps on their phones that are superior in virtually every way, so they can reduce their costs by letting their solution rot and few if any consumers will even care. Frankly, they are disincentivised to make it any better because then people may use it and they'd have to support it.

 

[jefrank]

Just came back from a 1500 mile roundtrip; my god is the nav in the truck worthless. Let me start by saying that I actually once liked the nav when we could plan a route on our phones and push it to the truck. Now that this option isnt available (uhh, why Ford?), here are some gripes:

I tried using it on a trip from my home to Columbus, OH a couple of weeks ago. It's only a 3.5 hour drive so it was a test to see how it compared to just using ABRP to get an idea and then relying on Google maps. I found almost everything you mentioned above and went right back to ABRP to plan and Google Maps to execute.

 

[SSNutz]

None of which, AFAIK, will precondition. Also the same issue of selecting terrible chargers enroute.

Google Maps on AA will precondition the truck. Real nice upgrade to Google maps and android users. Not sure about carplay. Plus I noticed Waze notification while using Google maps, like "Police reported ahead by Waze". Just finished 500 mile trip yesterday and loved it.

 

[csukoh78]

Just came back from a 1500 mile roundtrip; my god is the nav in the truck worthless. Let me start by saying that I actually once liked the nav when we could plan a route on our phones and push it to the truck. Now that this option isnt available (uhh, why Ford?), here are some gripes:

1. I have done this route before. Down I-75, into Florida’s Turnpike and then SFL. Theres tons of new chargers that have opened. None of which the nav wont recognize. Its stuck in 2023.
   
   
2. I have tried to plan a route with the truck starting from scratch. At one point, it gives you options on automatically or manually adding chargers. Some of the automatically added options were terrible choices. Like a 50KW Chargepoint when 5 miles down the road was a 350KW EA. When you try to manually add chargers, you select your first charger and then all of a sudden, your new route is from where you are at to the charger you selected. It doesnt continue, It does not understand the charger is one of many stops. It refuses to move on to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th charger of choice so I can complete the route I am requesting.
   
   
3. Ok well, let me precondition enroute to a charger by selecting one nearby as I am roughly 30 miles out. Nope, sorry. All the chargers shown as an option are behind me. If I am heading northbound, why show the chargers south of me? It should recognize my direction and exclude those I have already passed. Show me whats infront of me. Instead, it only displays those when I am roughly 15 miles out.
   
   
4. If you are parked and try to plan a route, your first attempt will get you specific stops for charging . If you cancel it and try again, the second routing will not be the same. Nothing has changed. Eventually by the 3rd or 4th try, the nav may display the 1st route it gave you. This is strictly chargers. The charging stops are different every time. Just give me the most efficient route with the fastest chargers and minimal downtime.

I know this probably has been a topic on the past but I really do hope some Ford engineer sees this and puts this project in queue. I understand that were all early adopters. For the amount of money we all spend on these trucks, we shouldnt have to depend on other routing apps. The option we had initially on pushing route’s was great. They took one good thing away and subsequently made it unusable.

Agree. 100% worthless. Unnecessary and nonsensical detours. Failed destinations (once it ended me 2.5 miles from the actual destination)

I rarely use it, Google maps all the way.
BTW what software is Ford using. It's ATROCIOUS

 

[Rthol21]

And even one further I recently stoped using Apple Maps through car play due to its garbage traffic updates consistently trying to put in me in worse travel time situations. I enjoyed seeing battery percentage with my trips through Apple Maps but Google maps just works so much better it’s not worth it.

 

[thunderbayterry]

Apple Car play and Android Auto with available apps like Waze, Google Maps, Apple Maps....I haven't used the Ford Nav once in over two years.

Yup! Me too!

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