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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

#271

Post by HWR_14 »

rektide wrote: post #185
HWR_14 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want third party support, a rich platform or an ecosystem? I want a radio and something that plays what my cellphone tells it. That's it.

Because the car company has a talent pool it can hire from & will have an easier time not f-ing it up. Because what you already know about screens is already present & not reinvented totally custom. You seem to have very select demanding opinions about what is and isnt ok to allow in, and to reject being over well served. From what I can see, neither QNX nor Android nor any carmaker of note (aside from exotics) has y…

If "broad usability" and "general answers" suggest many people want a touchscreen, why not make it an option? And is it "general answers" to create a piece of technology that will rapidly become out of date as opposed to some simple gauges and a bluetooth connection for audio? Broad usability, to me, implies simplicity. QNX, by virtue of being harder to move functionality into, better fits my anti-needs (nice phrase).

I'm not sure why a company Ford's size couldn't handle "it's a screen" in QNX, but it can handle how many I want in a car - no pixel matrix screens at all. The article makes it clear that a major annoyance with the slow computer is the replacement of physical buttons with slow swiping. Well, we could just have buttons.

Okay, but I recognize that for some reason I've lost this fight. Fragile, quickly obsoleted and hard to replace computers are going to try to make cars have a short lifespan. The fact that they're harder to use while driving will also continue to perplex me but there will be no other option.

But then they want to install software on my car that helps Google spy on my real-world locations? Or where the only way to sync my phone to the audio is to let Google listen in to the connection. You're right that we have no clue if Ford is spying on us now, but surely that data collection is going to continue. We're just adding Google to the list of companies.

All this makes me sad because an E-F150 was the EV I was hoping to get once supply exists.

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

#272

Post by dieselgate »

Well no publicity is bad publicity I suppose. Hopefully the nav screen thing will improve in future releases of this truck. Most surprising was the frunk and blazing quick 0-60mph times (4.6s?)! Hope they work out for people,; still prefer my ‘88 f250 but the Lightning basically has equivalent, if not superior, specs

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

#273

Post by emkoemko »

misiti3780 wrote: post #250
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Volt does 0-60 in about 7 seconds or so in sport mode but even better @ 0-30 and it feels so ridiculously torquey and instant to me and I can't even imagine needing anything beyond that ever. All the jockeying about 0-60 in 3 seconds or whatever on various Tesla machines just makes me shake my head. I really fear what that means in a large massive vehicle.

As someone driving a Tesla, I disagree. Going from 0-60 in 3.1 seconds is useful if you do a lot of highway driving and need to merge quickly. Also, it's fun to accelerate like that.

how did cars manage to merge before being able to do 0-60 in 3.1 seconds?

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

#274

Post by emkoemko »

ledauphin wrote: post #131
prepend wrote: post #92

> but also a stopgap as Ford resets its entire software strategy around Android in partnership with Google. This doesn’t seem like a good idea because there are Android people and iOS people. Alienating a large swath of customers is not a good idea. That and I don’t want Google monitoring all my car data. One of the big reasons I don’t have a Tesla is their data policy. But I’d rather Tesla have my data than Google b…

no car company "maintains" their embedded software, either. updates do happen, but there are no guarantees, no transparency, and essentially no aftermarket options for most modern cars.

GMC wanted me to pay like 200-300$ to update the firmware.... to fix a bug i had with my truck.... i look forward to android :)

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

#275

Post by HWR_14 »

uncletaco wrote: post #101
HWR_14 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want third party support, a rich platform or an ecosystem? I want a radio and something that plays what my cellphone tells it. That's it.

Well that's you, somebody else might want to use the subscription music service they pay for and use car controls to change the tracks, someone else might want a map that displays in the center console as opposed to their phone, etc etc. With android there's the possibility of adding apps that people would want to the car itself. This would be something device manufacturers could be interested in for dash cams or oth…

And, if like more than half of Americans I decided I didn't want an Android phone, now I get coerced to use Android to listen to my subscription music service, etc.

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

#276

Post by oceanplexian »

dognotdog wrote: post #239
karamanolev wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, it's not what people are doing. The UIs of cars and other objects should take into account how they're going to be used, not how they are designed to be used. It's been proven again and again that you can only marginally educate or tell people how to behave. It's better to make a system that is safe 7/10 in real world usage, instead of one designed for 9/10, but actually getting 5/10.

I'd claim things are more nuanced. There are many reasons why UIs in many places, not just cars, suck. In cars, wether warranted or not, there is also pressure from legal to err on the side of building a cludge that is unassailable vs. a smooth user experience that could be grounds for a class action because it doesn't make enough of an effort to discourage dangerous user behavior.

It’s because the incentives are in the wrong place. When the average Joe goes to a car lot a new truck with a touchscreen is “Futuristic” and “Modern”. The only cars that come with buttons are the base models, and are therefore “cheap”.

The car industry isn’t in the business of building great UIs, they’re in the business of selling cars off of the dealer lot, unfortunately.

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

#277

Post by IncRnd »

speed_spread wrote: post #216
jonnybgood wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ford is not a tech company. > Most people in Europe don’t want to leave. I believe they're saying if European tech companies want to compete in business with US tech companies they need to pay their engineers more money.

> Ford is not a tech company. By their CEO's own admission, Ford sees itself as a "data company": https://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/06/ceo-mark-fields-ford-dat... Their software chops are certainly dubious, but there is no questioning their intent when it comes to entering the surveillance economy.

> By their CEO's own admission, Ford sees itself as a "data company":

The linked article quotes the CEO, "Overall, when you look at our business, we're not only a car manufacturing company. We are a technology company. As our vehicles become part of the Internet of things and as consumers give permission to us to collect that data, we'll also become an information company."

That's marketing related to the IoT buzzword. Next week they might talk about using blockchain. The other part of the statement is that they are a "data company," because they can sell information about their customers.

The words from the CEO are the same words from a data analyst, but they each mean something entirely different.

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

#278

Post by AlotOfReading »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #182
Dig1t wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with your conclusion, this is why I feel that European tech companies can't compete with US ones at all. They just refuse to pay enough to attract the best engineers.

Well here's a North American company clearly not willing to pay competitive software engineering rates even within the continent, and trying to take advantage of sub-regional low rates. Like, they're not in Toronto, but just west of it, and companies there are paying less, so, hey, they should pay less, too, right? You get what you pay for. This is what happens when HR drones are allowed to do naive "compensation ran…

Many of these traditional manufacturing OEMs have software outfits in the bay that clutter up my LinkedIn inbox. They're usually offering 130-170k with limited to no additional compensation in the same cities where FAANG is paying 100k+ over their rates in base alone. It's not just that they're doing silly regional surveys, they have fundamental misunderstandings of market rates.

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

#279

Post by bombcar »

bri3d wrote: post #117

It's been 10+ years since cars have gotten screwed in the Consumer Reports and other outlets for bad infotainment. What's the fix? VW's MIB2/MIB2.5 was pretty much the pinnacle of automotive head unit innovation, IMHO, and it wasn't due to the technology - it's QNX and J9 Java like so many head units before it. It just... worked, which seems a bridge too far for modern infotainment. I think C+D and other outlets need…

The problem is cars are bought entirely on other things, the infotainment is not even considered and is rarely a dealbreaker.

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

#280

Post by bergenty »

Dig1t wrote: post #177
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #170

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…

I completely agree with your conclusion, this is why I feel that European tech companies can't compete with US ones at all. They just refuse to pay enough to attract the best engineers.

How does Europe make it work? Lower salaries, higher cost of living. Is it just that so many essentials are handled by the government? Or are they still coasting on the colonial wealth (this doesn’t seem likely)
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