Drivers of the Ford F-150 Lightning electrical truck will quickly have the ability to select to navigate with Apple Maps, if that’s what they like, and obtain steerage on the place to cost alongside the best way.
The information comes by way of CarsDirect, which observed the characteristic talked about in a Ford supplier communication despatched out this week, disclosing that each one Lightning house owners would have entry to the characteristic, though it requires Apple iOS 15.4 or newer and Ford Energy-Up 6.3.0 or greater.
The Apple Maps EV steerage isn’t utterly new to Ford EVs, however it’s to this mannequin. It got here to the Ford Mustang Mach-E final spring, protecting all 2022 and 2023 fashions, in addition to some fashions going again to the 2021 mannequin yr, relying on the Sync 4A infotainment system’s software program model.
Apple CarPlay EV steerage
As Ford defined then: “Apple Maps will use your iPhone to learn automobile and battery information when related to CarPlay and help you in your journey by including chargers into your journey as needed.”
Inexperienced Automobile Experiences hasn’t but examined charging-stop performance with Apple Maps versus Ford’s native navigation options and using the BlueOval charging community.
Different EVs are, like Ford, letting Apple Maps faucet into their state-of-charge information with the intention to assist navigation on the fly—however they seem to permit it to various levels.
Apple Maps in Porsche Taycan
Porsche, for example, boasts that Apple Maps within the Taycan tracks power use each step of the best way and can adapt the path to elevation adjustments and different elements. It notes that the Taycan’s built-in Charging Planner prompts battery preconditioning for a high-power charging cease, whereas navigation with Apple Maps received’t.
Apple has permitted this characteristic set since 2020, and BMW was the primary model to declare that it could be enabled in a U.S.-market EV—the 2022 BMW i4.
Google first added electric-car chargers to its navigation in 2018, however they had been basically simply factors of curiosity at the moment. Solely earlier this yr did it announce a deeper degree of knowledge on charging stations, permitting some EVs with Google built-in entry to their state-of-charge and vary estimates, and thus related dynamic navigation with charging stops. These fashions, as of earlier within the yr, had been the Polestar 2, Volvo XC40 Recharge, Volvo C40 Recharge, Cadillac Lyriq, and GMC Hummer EV.
2023 Ford F-150 Lightning
In the event you’re not on the Apple ecosystem you’re not lacking out on something specifically within the Lightning, apart from one other interface selection. Ford notes that numerous options stay accessible by way of its embedded navigation, when related to the FordPass app, that aren’t supplied by way of Apple Maps—together with charging station availability, whether or not or not a station is Plug & Cost succesful (with fee particulars linked to a singular automobile identifier), and whether or not cost stations are a part of Ford’s BlueOval cost community. Ford’s native navigation system additionally permits customers to see BlueCruise-enabled roads.
Ford can be including a Cost Help characteristic that permits drivers to make use of the infotainment system’s display screen to search out, begin, and pay for a public charging station slightly than having to make use of the FordPass app or the charging community’s app. That characteristic began to roll out in batches of car updates pushed beginning Sept. 4.
