Just a few days ago, we reported that Ford’s new electrical system, which launches on the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E and 2021 Ford F-150, will be called “fully-networked vehicle,” or FNV for short. The main benefit of the Ford FNV system is that it enables vehicles to receive over-the-air updates for the infotainment system and many other features. However, it appears that Ford FNV will provide owners with much more than just OTA capability.
“Connectivity is a big deal for us as a company and we are prone to disrupt ourselves and really compete with the best of the best,” Ali Jamoul, North America Engineering Director, told Ford Authority Executive Editor, Alex Luft, in a recent interview.
“The [FNV] electrical architecture is foundational and you’ll see that when we migrate it to a lot of vehicles. The foundational electrical architecture, we’ll continue to evolve and provide customers with other services. So beyond OTA updates, there will be a host of services that we will provide to our customers that will keep them connected, improve their lifestyle, and drive more assistance and safety and everything.”
Additionally, Jamoul alluded to the fact that Ford FNV will evolve into further generations and more features over time. As we previously reported, Ford will utilize multiple versions of FNV, and both the Mach-E and 2021 F-150 employ a version called FNV 2.0.
FNV’s ability to provide over-the-air updates is a huge benefit for these and future vehicles. OTA updates are delivered wirelessly, as they become available. This replaces the old tried-and-true method of taking a vehicle to the dealership so it can be updated via the OBD port, saving a ton of time in the process.
OTA updates are downloaded in the background, with smaller updates sometimes capable of being completed in under two minutes. More complex updates that might take longer may require the vehicle to be parked in order to be delivered.
Virtually every module in the Mach-E can be updated wirelessly, gifting the crossover with everything from new SYNC features to improved performance or range. Updates can be scheduled to occur overnight, or at a time when the vehicle isn’t in use. This way, vehicles can quite literally get better over time, automatically.
We’ll have more on Ford’s new electrical architecture soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford F-Series news, Ford F-150 news, Mustang Mach-E news, and continuous Ford news coverage.
Comments
Hopefully this will work better than “My Ford Touch” – which caused the initial quality of FORD vehicles in general to be downgraded for a year or two.
My Chevy volt (2019) just insisted on doing an ‘upgrade’ which I immediately CANCELLED – I got a warning message saying that the cancellation CANNOT be reversed and the dealer would have to perform the upgrade in the future if I wanted it – which I don’t – since the car is working fine, and I don’t want any hastily thought out changes made that make the car work worse than it is now, since at the moment it is working tolerably well.
To Ford Owner: considering that open wireless is available in a lot of places, that update is likely to take place virtually anywhere.