Reactions from 6 Ford plant employees upon seeing the Fathom EV truck / Ford Universal EV Platform

[onuiebvbevnulib]

Six employees from Louisville Assembly Plant and BlueOval Battery Park Michigan were invited to see the future of electric vehicle production and the first vehicle from the new Ford Universal EV Platform.

 

[The Electric Duo]

We met a couple of them at LAP last year. We tried to get them to say more but they wouldn't say anything at all. They (and other employees) at LAP did talk about how excited they were for the new assembly process because it should be a lot easier for the workers. And they were really excited that the plant is getting AC.

We also talked to Sandy Munro at the event. He has seen the truck as well. We had him on camera for an interview but it got interrupted by Jim Farley.

 

[DeluxeStang]

Old vid, but I liked seeing their reaction to the design. It's possible they were told to fake it, but that seemed pretty genuine.

I'm also really looking forward to whatever that car is in the background. New escort hopefully with rally inspiration.

 

[Blue Lightning]

Does anyone know what software differences this truck will have, and is it expected to be far better than what is in the lightning?

 

[The Electric Duo]

Does anyone know what software differences this truck will have, and is it expected to be far better than what is in the lightning?

They haven't said much about the software except that Apple Maps with be the native navigation system.

I asked Doug Field at the "Model T Moment" event in Louisville about the software tech. He wouldn't say anything at all except, "It's going to be great."

At CES in January, they talked a new high-performance compute center: "a pivotal in-house module specifically designed for our future, unifying infotainment (IVI), ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), audio, and networking into a single, compact powerhouse."

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us...d-in-house-smarter-cheaper-vehicle-technology

 

[NewOldSchool]

Old vid, but I liked seeing their reaction to the design. It's possible they were told to fake it, but that seemed pretty genuine.

I'm also really looking forward to whatever that car is in the background. New escort hopefully with rally inspiration.

The pictures of the truck under a cover has interesting body lines. It has to be genuine.

Then again I love the slight hood design that’s similar to the Lightning SuperTruck.

 

[Snakebitten]

I'm betting it is not Sync4

(Although I gotta be honest, I don't dislike Sync4, even though it's vogue to. The Gen14 F150 is 6 years in now, and Sync4 has reached mature and stable status)

I fear that whatever it is, if it's NOT Sync4, it's still going to be one of the more criticized aspects of the truck. It'll be so early in the development stage that it will be easy to find faults.

I have GM's latest Android Automotive in my 2025 GMC Sierra EV Denali. It's OK, but overall I still think Sync4 in my KingRanch Powerboost has native features that give it the edge in functionality.

 

[WXman]

We know very little to nothing about the new software that'll power this new platform, other than Jim Farley constantly talking about Apple integration and Apple maps. That concerns me a bit. Apple objectively has the worst OS, and Apple Maps used to be so terrible that people demanded Google Maps be included in future releases of iOS.

I guess time will tell...

 

[ScooterAsheville]

I know what I want in the software. A single stack under Ford's control, probably (not necessarily) based on Google Automotive.

The reason I want that is maintainability and responsibility and responsiveness. When it's inhouse, and it glitches, you can (if the engineering gods smile upon you) rapidly replicate, isolate, repair and distribute. When the vehicle is filled with black-box systems accessed via APIs, there is often denial and finger-pointing and months of back-and-forth as customers suffer. When the whole stack is inhouse, the boss can say "fix it by Friday or find a new job".

I saw this first hand in my career. There's nothing as horrible as a customer suffering while the managers of companies A, B and C engage in a round robin game of "it's your fault and you have to fix it".

 

[WXman]

HVAC controls should always be on physical buttons, and radio volume should always be on a rotary knob. Other than that I don't care what they put on the screen as long as it's not glitchy and it works.

I already filed the form with LexisNexis to have them stop collecting my personal information back when I owned the Lightning, so in theory I shouldn't have to worry about the invasive nature of whatever software Ford goes with. I do NOT want my vehicle tracking me and creating a portfolio to be sold to insurance companies and whoever else wants to pay for it. And I most certainly will not pay a monthly subscription fee for ANY features aside from my existing SiriusXM account. Hopefully Ford treats us right with this.