Seriously Ford???? with your updates....

[mxracer]

@Ford Motor Company you update my vehicle and break a safety feature of it staying in the mode I select, that goes on for MONTHS, and the next update is some stupid "Charge door locks when on DC charger" as the next update?

That update BTW further degraded things. I no longer get the tone to keep sport mode just the modal, and the reverse parking sensor tone sounds like it's coming from a broken 1980 speaker now.

Your software department is a joke. Has been since I bought my 2017 F450.

Let me know if I can help your team of Jr. developers in any way.

...or just make it opensource and it will be fixed in just a few days I'm sure.

Your crappy software is what is going to drive me away from your products.

Can't express my disappointment and frustration enough.

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[Athrun88]

^ What he said

While not a developer, maybe if Ford opened up a bug bounty program and crowdsourced these solutions, it might be better for both sides in the long run. Lots of talent in the general population and even more in the pool of passionate users/customers. Maybe an idea to bump upstairs for consideration @Ford Motor Company?

 

[djwildstar]

I no longer get the tone to keep sport mode just the modal, and the reverse parking sensor tone sounds like it's coming from a broken 1980 speaker now.

These are both symptoms of a 12V battery that is low on charge. It is likely that the software updates depleted your 12V to the point where the truck is powering-down systems to conserve power. The fix is to charge up the 12V battery, and see if these go back to "normal". Approaches for charging the 12V include:

• Power-on the truck for driving (Start+Brake) and leave it powered-on for several hours. Road-trip driving will do. However, I typically park the truck, disable the power-down timer, turn off the radio and climate systems, lock it, and leave it running for 3-4 hours.
• Ensure that your next AC charging session takes at least 4 hours. You can do this by not plugging in for a while, until the high-voltage battery is low enough that it'll need a long time to charge, or you can reduce the charging power level (if your truck or charger has the options for that) so that the session will take 4 or more hours.
• Use a 12V AGM charger to charge the battery in place. Remember that the 12V BMS sensor is on the battery's negative terminal, so do not bypass the sensor when you hook up the charger. Charging current must flow through the BMS sesnor for the truck to "know" the battery is charged.
• Remove the 12V battery (ideally placing the truck on a maintainer), test it, and either charge it or replace it depending on the test results. You will need to reset the 12V BMS after putting the charged battery back in, and allow the truck to accurately sense 12V state of charge (12 hours with no keyfob in range, no Ford app access, etc.)

 

[proprepper]

I'm 99% positive thinker, get that from my 97 yr old mom... but....

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU. My lightning was my First Ford and my last.

 

[mxracer]

These are both symptoms of a 12V battery that is low on charge. It is likely that the software updates depleted your 12V to the point where the truck is powering-down systems to conserve power. The fix is to charge up the 12V battery, and see if these go back to "normal". Approaches for charging the 12V include:

• Power-on the truck for driving (Start+Brake) and leave it powered-on for several hours. Road-trip driving will do. However, I typically park the truck, disable the power-down timer, turn off the radio and climate systems, lock it, and leave it running for 3-4 hours.
• Ensure that your next AC charging session takes at least 4 hours. You can do this by not plugging in for a while, until the high-voltage battery is low enough that it'll need a long time to charge, or you can reduce the charging power level (if your truck or charger has the options for that) so that the session will take 4 or more hours.
• Use a 12V AGM charger to charge the battery in place. Remember that the 12V BMS sensor is on the battery's negative terminal, so do not bypass the sensor when you hook up the charger. Charging current must flow through the BMS sesnor for the truck to "know" the battery is charged.
• Remove the 12V battery (ideally placing the truck on a maintainer), test it, and either charge it or replace it depending on the test results. You will need to reset the 12V BMS after putting the charged battery back in, and allow the truck to accurately sense 12V state of charge (12 hours with no keyfob in range, no Ford app access, etc.)

Nope, stays on charger all the time, and if 12v is low then I site my original statement that the software sucks and does not keep the 12v system charged from the AC inverter while updating.

Edited so as to not convey hostility, just sarcasm....

I don't think AI has all the inputs to my situation and it's "guess" won't help this situation.

 

[Lostx403]

OP needs more hostility in his morning coffee.

 

[MountainAlive]

I’ve learned that this is unfortunately due to the architecture of the whole vehicle. Instead of having a central computer (like Tesla or your iPhone) Fords are made up of dozens of separate “computers” (ECUs) all made by different manufacturers with their own computer code on them. From a software engineer’s perspective, it sucks and makes things 100x harder than it needs to be. The next gen EV platform from Ford is supposed to correct this with a complete do-over of how they architect the vehicle electronics. Aka “zonal architecture”. In the meantime, OTAs on our trucks is not a happy time.

 

[mxracer]

I’ve learned that this is unfortunately due to the architecture of the whole vehicle. Instead of having a central computer (like Tesla or your iPhone) Fords are made up of dozens of separate “computers” (ECUs) all made by different manufacturers with their own computer code on them. From a software engineer’s perspective, it sucks and makes things 100x harder than it needs to be. The next gen EV platform from Ford is supposed to correct this with a complete do-over of how they architect the vehicle electronics. Aka “zonal architecture”. In the meantime, OTAs on our trucks is not a happy time.

Agree with all your points there. I also consider that they are "in bed" with Microsoft as a negative impact.

My wife's Lincoln Nautilus has the new software which is google based and while not perfect is much better than Ford's IMO.

 

[Albern]

^ What he said

While not a developer, maybe if Ford opened up a bug bounty program and crowdsourced these solutions, it might be better for both sides in the long run. Lots of talent in the general population and even more in the pool of passionate users/customers. Maybe an idea to bump upstairs for consideration @Ford Motor Company?

Crowd sourcing would be a really cool idea.

@Ford Motor Company Brian, what would be involved to get this kind of program up and running?

As I've said elsewhere, all the data is available; it's really about a big UI refresh and dealing with the OTA update process.

And as an alternative, what about the Ford Integration Module if source code can't be made available?

 

[djwildstar]

Nope, stays on charger all the time, and if 12v is low then I site my original statement that the software sucks and does not keep the 12v system charged from the AC inverter while updating.

You do sound confident in your internet diagnosis of my particular situation though.

From many years of experience I'll share that using terms like "could be" or "might be" or in fact asking questions yields much better results vs pasting AI output into a thread.

I am not an AI, and I do not copy and paste AI output -- I'm somewhat offended that you think it was. That post was 100% written by me, and based on my personal experience and informed by the experiences of others in the community.

I'm trying to provide you with actionable advice that will help you resolve at least a few of issues you are experiencing. If that's not what you need, feel free to ignore what I write -- as my wife often points out to me, sometimes folks don't want possible fixes, they just want sympathy.

I don't disagree that Ford could do a better job managing the 12V battery in its EVs. I suspect that they don't bother because the 12V typically lasts through the bumper-to-bumper warranty period, and failures after that make money for the dealerships.

I'm fairly confident that your truck's computer thinks the 12V battery is low. This is because:

• I am not aware of any Lightning software update that changes the truck's in-cabin alerting or warning tones -- though I'm always willing to learn: If you have release notes or module programming data that shows that Ford deliberately changed the warning tones, please let me know.
• I do know (and have personally experienced) that if the truck's computer system thinks the 12V battery charge is low, then it will use the "retro-sounding" dashboard warnings rather than the usual chimes. The explanation for this that I've heard is that the chimes require specific computer modules to be powered-up, increasing the draw in the 12V battery.

When you state that your truck "stays on the charger all the time" are you referring to keeping your truck plugged into a Level 1/2 EVSE ("charger"), or are you referring to a 12V battery charger or 12V battery tender?

Something that a lot of people don't realize about the Lightning, is that the 12V battery does not charge when the truck is plugged in, unless the high-voltage battery is also actively charging. The truck does not have a separate 120V/240V to 12V battery charger: the high-voltage DC system must be powered-up to run the 400VDC-to-12VDC converter that charges the 12V battery. When the truck is off, the only time the high-voltage system is powered up is when the truck is charging the high-voltage battery (or when using Pro Power Onboard or Intelligent Backup Power, but those are special situations).

This means that if you mostly drive short trips and charge every night, the truck's 12V battery only gets a few minutes of charging a day. However, the 12V has a more-or-less continuous load on it to run the systems that listen for the keyfob and Ford app access.

The truck does have an emergency 12V recharge protocol. It doesn't kick in until the 12V battery is very low (to the point where sulfation has likely already started), and even then doesn't fully recharge the 12V battery. You may get an "Electrical system drain, service required" message if the truck performed an emergency 12V charge.

If you do have the battery on a 12V maintainer, a common issue is attaching the maintainer directly to the battery's terminals. The issue is that this bypasses the 12V BMS sensor on the battery's negative terminal. Because the 12V battery is under a continuous (and often fluctuating) load, the truck doesn't usually measure the 12V battery voltage to determine the state of charge. Instead, it senses current into and out of the battery, and keeps a tally of what the battery charge should be based on that.

While the maintainer will charge the battery in this situation, if truck's computer system doesn't know that the 12V was charged because it didn't "see" the charging current through the BMS sensor, then it will command 12V battery-saving measures like the "retro" warning tones even though the 12V battery charge is fine.

 

[djwildstar]

Agree with all your points there. I also consider that they are "in bed" with Microsoft as a negative impact.

Sync 1 and 2 were based on Microsoft Auto OS, and contained a lot of Microsoft code. Ford's exclusivity agreement with Microsoft expired in 2008. Ford re-developed Sync using BlackBerry (QNX) software starting with Sync 3. The Sync 4/4A software in the Lightning is Microsoft-free.

Having experienced all versions of Sync since it was introduced, I'd say that despite its reputation for bugs, the Microsoft-based versions of Sync were actually more-reliable than the QNX-based versions. Yes, Ford's software quality control is worse than a company that managed to write 3 completely different bugs in 512 bytes of code (the original Xbox boot loader).

Ford redeveloped Sync again for Sync 5. The new version is based on the Android Automotive OS, and currently is on 2023+ Lincoln Nautilus, 2025+ Lincoln Navigator, Lincoln Aviator, and Ford Expedition. I suspect we will see Sync 5 in additional Ford vehicles as the infotainment systems are updated.

It isn't completely clear, but I suspect that the new "universal" BEV platform will use different infotainment software that is not a continuation of either the Sync 4 or Sync 5 lines of development.

 

[mxracer]

Ok, you win, you know more than me.

Have a great day.

 

[rp1723]

Not for nothing but ford is light years ahead of other manufacturers. I had an ioniq 5 and they would give you “sounds of nature” as their big update. They had a bug that disabled battery preconditioning when setting the charge limit through the app in an update 2 years ago and it’s still there even after they “updated” several times since then

 

[ZSC100]

@Ford Motor Company will never release code to be open source then placed into vehicles. This would introduce all kinds of safety/warranty issues when they can barely manage things as they are.

They could however implement some kind of bounty program where a seasoned software engineer would maintain a very transparent list with some kind of way for the community to $tip bounty for features.

For instance is some such program existed right now I'd throw $5 on several tweaks, but it would take a seasoned software engineer to articulate what a mod would involve, for instance knowing that if someone wanted a feature involving the way motor temperatures are displayed on the IPC and to have the option selectable in the APIM retain drive mode between driving sessions. There should be an entry saying all the module changes required to make the feature work, and an estimate of time needed to implement and test it.

There should also be a very well managed demands category for safety items like: Prohibit activation of cruise control when steering wheel turned beyond 45deg. These kind of feature requests need to be well defined and transparent.

I doubt we'll see any of this for any past distributed architecture, but maybe we can hope for something like this in the future with the nodal architecture.

 

[Newton]

The fact that people can be surprised that there can be more than one bug in 512k of code really shows why developing automotive software can’t be a community project.

This is not video game development. Although the parts that we see look the same the important bits are entirely unlike the coding that you learned in school or the business and network software that I developed. The lowest that worked on involved sending hex commands to network or disc controllers, fire off a few numbers and read bytes from memory. Automotive programmers are controlling things at a much lower level that is more like electrical engineering. Turn on this relay 10ms after that sensor reads more than .9V sort of stuff.

Where I think that Ford is flailing is on version control and management. I developed operating systems, don’t cry to me about how difficult it is to have software from different vendors! They needed to be rigorous about ensuring a stable customer release base. Either the component update goes to us customers or it doesn’t (yet). As soon as you let the releases branch per individual vehicles you have a nightmare. Test needs to have as few variants to test as possible. When and only when the update passes test does it go out and the goal is that every customer gets it. If you are slipstreaming in incompatible parts to your assembly line that is a problem - issues that require physical component changes should never have made it to production.

off soapbox. Words from experience sadly.

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