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Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

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Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#161

Post by ericd »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #60
PaulWaldman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mazda is apparently taking the right approach here -- increasing the tactile buttons on the dash and console, and ditching touchscreens. Huh? After using both Ford's (2022 Explorer) and Mazda's (2022 CX-7) infotainment systems recently for several weeks, I couldn't disagree more. Android Auto and CarPlay interfaces were designed for touchscreen control. Mazda forcing the use of a wheel, like a joystick is a safety h…

> Turing the wheel unpredictably selects objects on the screen, forcing you to keep your eyes off the road while you keep turning the wheel until the item you need is selected. You shouldn't need to do anything requiring the wheel while you're driving though. All the controls that you would want to have accessible while you're driving are physical (climate control, basic media/phone controls.) For everything else you…

The thumbwheel buttons on the Tesla wheel are great, and one of them activates listening for voice commands, which work really well. That usually handles all music switching and climate control setting.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#162

Post by natch »

rootusrootus wrote: post #154
bottlepalm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(except Tesla who actually has their own hardware, software, dev team and frequently pushes updates for years)

And doesn't support basic functionality like CarPlay or Android Auto, which is supported by almost every other manufacturer even on their base model cheap cars.

And other cars don't support Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Twitch, and arcade games while in Park, which are great when waiting for something, as well as Spotify, TuneIn, etc., so I guess we're even? I'd rather have a bunch of competing services rather than just a generic UI from one vendor that's always pushing service upgrade packages like Apple One.

I suspect CarPlay and Android Auto come with strings attached from Apple (must fall in line with the Apple walled garden rules) and Google (must track users on behalf of Google) so, no big loss.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#163

Post by bombela »

kortilla wrote: post #148
vel0city wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they drive while holding their phones on speakerphone while talking into it like they're about to take a bite out of a sandwich. Other than volume and next track/station, just about any other media control is going to have my hand off the wheel for a bit and probably require me to look at what its doing even if its all just a bunch of buttons and knobs. Like what, change which folder I'm in? Change to a differe…

> Every car I've owned for over 20 years has been able to keep its climate consistent and comfortable without the need for me to make adjustments for months on end This doesn’t work when sometimes the sun is shining and sometimes it isn’t.

I think this is a very valid point. The car cannot detect that you are receiving sun rays through the windows. Making you feel much hotter than the ambiant air.

Sometimes you need to adjust the vent to blow in your face more directly, or set the climate control to cool the air further to offset the inconvenience.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#164

Post by guntars »

TylerE wrote: post #137
guntars wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the cars are more expensive than ever. Nah, it’s a bet by the management that people don’t actually choose a car based on the polish of the infotainment system.

You're not really arguing with logic, there. How do you know a car with lots of buttons wouldn't cost even more?

The logic is that removing buttons would make the cars cheaper as they have historically had buttons up until very recently. I imagine it did, by several dollars, but it was overwhelmed by the increase in other features. Now with touch screens they are able to iterate even quicker and add more features of dubious quality, but it looks better in comparison checklists.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#165

Post by clouddrover »

olivermarks wrote: post #36

Right now automotive UI's and sw are in the equivalent of pre iphone era mobile phone jankyness, just good at one or two things with a ton of cruft that doesn't work well. We all know BEVs are fast - even a 1960's UK electric milkfloat is amazingly speedy from standstill - but I'd say Ford are years away from their BEVs being viable and reliable, not least due to lack of charging network. The lousy towing performance…

> not least due to lack of charging network

It's true that there need to be more fast chargers, but it's also true that this notion of "no charging network for CCS cars" is making less sense every month.

You can get across America and Canada on CCS chargers. For example on Petro-Canada or Electrify America (and there are more charging networks than just these two):

- https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger/

- https://www.petro-canada.ca/en/personal/fuel/canadas-electri...

A Better Route Planner is a good tool to try out routes in various models of EV to see how easy or hard a given trip will be:

- https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

Europe sensibly standardized on CCS type 2 Combo so any brand of car can charge on any brand of charger. Even Tesla is finally opening their chargers to all brands in Europe:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ

Eventually Tesla will do the same in North America and that will make more CCS chargers available.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#166

Post by throwaway0a5e »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #39
pkulak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm firmly in the camp that it's not patriotic to stylize the American flag in any way... but I'd love it if you expanded on how this version is racist.

The "thin blue line" flag is used almost exclusively by the far-right, and more specifically by white supremacists. The flag on the Lightning isn't that flag, but it does resemble it.

The level of pro establishment sentiment that the thin blue line flag conveys precludes the person from being far anything.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#167

Post by CharlesW »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #152
ubermonkey wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are okay-ish, but frankly I find the experience of just having the phone on a mount and using that as the display to be far superior in almost every way. That's super confusing to me. How is that superior to the larger presentation of (e.g.) CarPlay that has (a) bigger touch targets and (b) an automatically filtered presentation of apps relevant to driving? I find CarPlay to be so good…

I can understand the large screen, but really, it should just be a normal external screen your phone can output to.

> I can understand the large screen, but really, it should just be a normal external screen your phone can output to.

CarPlay is so good (and far safer) because it doesn't just mirror your phone's landscape view, but presents a driving-specific experience.

Not-mirroring has another advantage in that your phone can still be used (by a passenger, of course) to do whatever while CarPlay continues to do its thing.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#169

Post by throwaway894345 »

namecheapTA wrote: post #107
twobitshifter wrote: post #93

With the performance of this and other EVs now beating the Raptor pickup, do you think we’ll start to see performance regulated for safety reasons? A massive pickup able to 0-60 in a few seconds is cool, but in the hands of the less responsible it sounds like a huge safety risk. We cap the performance of tiny scooters but multiton trucks are able to go as fast as humanly possible?

Atleast when a Dodge Charger is charging up from behind, I can hear the thing. Pedestrians can hear the thing. When the demographic that currently commits most reckless driving eventually adopts electric cars, it's going to be a blood bath.

That’s an interesting observation that I hadn’t considered. My enthusiasm for EVs has been pretty unmitigated previously. I still think climate is important enough that dealing with the safety stuff is probably tractable and also the lesser evil, but it’s good to have line of sight on it.

Re: Ford F-150 Lightning: Fast Truck, Slow Computer

#170

Post by cmrdporcupine »

FWIW Ford was hiring around this area (southern Ontario) for software engineers to work on their in-car systems like this. Not sure if this specific one. From what I've heard they were woefully underpaying. A friend of mine talked to them -- very qualified; like me he worked on similar touchscreen, interactive display type systems at Google/Nest, and had a general background on similar systems, and on QNX, etc. They tried to lowball him badly. Like 1/2 the rate he asked for (contract) and probably 1/3rd or 1/4 what we made at Google. I saw a posting from them recently, again, and they were crowing about how they wanted to see candidate's GPA's etc. etc. I don't have a degree, so even if I hadn't heard about their low pay, I wouldn't even consider applying despite being probably very qualified for what they were doing. We had a whole team at Google that worked on getting rid of "jank" and improving FPS and performance on a really low-spec SoC. I wasn't any kind of expert on that team, but I learned a little. But they clearly weren't willing to pay reasonable for talent (like most local Canadian employers, frankly)

All of this to say: You get what you pay for.

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