Is Ford losing their enthusiasm?

[DiveMan911]

Hey all!
I was an early adopter and in August it will be 2 years as an owner of my Lightning. I quite love the truck…as a matter of fact I just spent a couple days/roughly 8hrs thoroughly detailing the inside and outside of Zeus.

I’m getting the sense that either:
-Ford is loosing interest in the EV space
-They’re doing the typical loosing interest in their current owners to focus on sales of newer models.
-or…I’m just being overly sensitive.

I’ll expound a little:
I think it’s pretty clear the overall demand for EV’s has cooled: whether that’s due to cost, overproduction, interest, or any combo of those. I certainly don’t have the answer and I’m confident it could be debated ad nauseum. But…all manufactures have decreased their production numbers and now Ford keeps going back on a lot of plans they had for the EV space (the most recent being expectations/certification of dealerships that are selling EV’s).
On a separate note: I own another Ford vehicle and I was very happy when I first bought it and I remember feeling this way about 2 to 3 years into ownership. What I noticed was that Ford just stopped caring about me as owner and it felt like their objective moved from customer support to “the next model”. Advancing the ball forward is the right move no doubt…but support for vehicles just a couple years old can and should still be a priority in my opinion. I see this happening again as evidenced in what appears to be a complete stoppage of OTA updates and no reasonable timeline for promised updates, including BC 1.4. To be honest the whole OTA process has been a bit of a letdown to say the least: the rollouts have been murky at best and I can only think of maybe 3 or 4 that have had any meaningful improvement for the truck/my experience. It appears an already taxed software team is likely getting pushed to update newer models and those with 2 year vehicles are going to be all but forgotten far sooner than we should be in my opinion.

I’m not looking for a debate…just interested in the view you’re all seeing from your vantage point. I still love the truck and have no intentions of jumping ship…just a little disappointed in Ford’s follow through on promises (though, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised).

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[The Weatherman]

I certainly feel abandoned. The promised updates (Blue Cruise 1.?) have never materialized and the general OTA’s have become nonexistent.

I assume Jimmy Boy has been taking heat from his board and shareholders to produce profits NOW! Damn tomorrow.

 

[DiveMan911]

I certainly feel abandoned. The promised updates (Blue Cruise 1.?) have never materialized and the general OTA’s have become nonexistent.

I assume Jimmy Boy has been taking heat from his board and shareholders to produce profits NOW! Damn tomorrow.

“Abandoned” seems a much more eloquent word than my musings. Spot on.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I think they're struggling to get everything that has gone sideways over the past two years straightened out, the silence is deafening, but hopefully that just means they have their nose to the grindstone, any small positives are celebrated.

 

[Green1]

I don't think this is anything unique to Ford. I realized a very long time ago to never buy anything based on promises of future software updates. You will always be disappointed. What worries me more is where they go backwards. For example the new app UI is missing many features in the older version. For people who were using the API to integrate the vehicle into home automation systems, they just replaced the API, and the new one likewise has MUCH less information available than the old one. My purchasing behaviour handles stagnation well, I'm much less prepared for regression, though I will say that in many aspects of my life I insulate myself from that by refusing to buy anything relying on someone else's servers, unfortunately when it comes to vehicles, there's no way around it if you want the fancy tech features (and I do!)

But every big company does this. There's no money in maintaining existing products, the money is in selling new products. Companies don't understand that user loyalty comes from good maintenance, they just see it as a line item on the wrong side of the accounting ledger.

 

[Mache_Enrique]

The legacy car companies have always let 3+ year old cars age out hoping that would motivate you to buy a new one with the latest stuff. But in reality when you get into your 3+ year old car and the Infotainment and other software is crap, it just makes you angry, reduces the joy of the driving experience and ultimately hurts the brand. A sales person I knew well told me as much years ago when I griped about how Sync 1.0 in my old 2014 fusion made me angry every time I drove the car...they said that is how Ford helps motivate to buy that new car. I was not intending to buy Ford anymore (and I had bought a few in the past)...until I saw what they were doing with the MachE...then the Lighting...which gave me hope and I bought both.

Tesla and Rivian realized that keeping cars fresh with software makes their customers fall in love with their car every time they drive it and have real joy when something cool and new is updated on their 1+ year old car. That builds intense brand loyalty. Ford ModelE is starting to get that...you see it more with the MachE than the Lighting but it is not nearly as passionate as focused as Rivian and Tesla. I smile every time I drive my Lighting or my wife's MachE GT, as these vehicles are just so fantastically built and fun to drive...but if we got cool updates every once in a while we would have an even better emotional connection and feel deeper brand loyalty (getting BlueCruise 1.x would be a fantastic start).

Ill take the little victories...just today I noted in the MachE the "windows 95 era" icons in the upper left of the big screen for home/settings/camerea finally got an update that I was not expecting (see below). It gave me hope more love will come to Lightning owners soon too.

 

[02Reaper]

The legacy car companies have always let 3+ year old cars age out hoping that would motivate you to buy a new one with the latest stuff. But in reality when you get into your 3+ year old car and the Infotainment and other software is crap, it just makes you angry, reduces the joy of the driving experience and ultimately hurts the brand. A sales person I knew well told me as much years ago when I griped about how Sync 1.0 in my old 2014 fusion made me angry every time I drove the car...they said that is how Ford helps motivate to buy that new car. I was not intending to buy Ford anymore (and I had bought a few in the past)...until I saw what they were doing with the MachE...then the Lighting...which gave me hope and I bought both.

Tesla and Rivian realized that keeping cars fresh with software makes their customers fall in love with their car every time they drive it and have real joy when something cool and new is updated on their 1+ year old car. That builds intense brand loyalty. Ford ModelE is starting to get that...you see it more with the MachE than the Lighting but it is not nearly as passionate as focused as Rivian and Tesla. I smile every time I drive my Lighting or my wife's MachE GT, as these vehicles are just so fantastically built and fun to drive...but if we got cool updates every once in a while we would have an even better emotional connection and feel deeper brand loyalty (getting BlueCruise 1.x would be a fantastic start).

Ill take the little victories...just today I noted in the MachE the "windows 95 era" icons in the upper left of the big screen for home/settings/camerea finally got an update that I was not expecting (see below). It gave me hope more love will come to Lightning owners soon too.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Ford is used to doing a model refresh every few years. Tesla has kept the same look and such for many years. Rivian seems to have kept their same design for a few years also. I think Ford needs to just keep working on what they have for more years than they do currently. How can you expect to start to break even when your changing everything and retooling every couple of years?

 

[Danface]

I like the truck because it's fun to drive and doesn't burn gasoline. I bought it because the state and feds together gave me 15K which it brought it inlike with an ICE truck (flashback to camping and getting blocks of ice from the ice truck).

It is discouraging that Ford's shiney new toy is getting a bit tarnished. When that happens I take the truck through the carwash, let's hope Ford finds the corporate equivalent and puts some love back into it's electric vehicles.

I don't use the app so "eh".

 

[MAG]

It’s interesting to read the comments about OTA updates,the last one I had was the Tesla charger use,before that I can’t even remember.I‘ve owned the truck since Aug.23 and I might of had 3 OTA updates.I must admit the only one I only one I care about is the Blue Cruise,still on the original.I am not concerned so much about lack of updates but the fact that Ford seems to have forgotten about us,very happy to take our cash when they wanted to sell them.Love the truck but may look at another manufacturer next time.

 

[Montecarlossfan]

I think the lost interest in the fact that they promise a truck at a certain price and the release at quite a bit more and many won’t spend that kind of money or at that point over 5 years gas is cheaper to run even with all maintenance and such.

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