Goldstuck dials into a new world of motoring
FORDPASS CONNECT: INTRODUCING A REVOLUTIONARY VEHICLE APP
At the launch, the star of the show wasn’t in the car.
Icame to love the Black Panther during two days of intimacy. No, not watching the movie, but test driving a car that was given that nickname.
The new Ford Ranger FX4, launched in South Africa last week, had an extra attribute.
The tech functionality of most cars lies in knowing which buttons to press to have a great experience.
In the case of the Black Panther, our assigned jet black edition of the FX4, the cool experience started outside the car.
Produced at the Silverton Assembly Plant in Pretoria, it is the first Ford pickup made in South Africa that can be classified as a connected car.
Thanks to an app called FordPass, almost any function of the car that is not directly related to driving can now be controlled from a smartphone, at a distance.
This includes remote locking and unlocking, remote starting on automatic vehicles, vehicle locating and vehicle health alerts
It is made possible by FordPass Connect, with a dedicated modem standard on all new Ford Ranger models.
The modem is the key to the connected car experience, as it is the interface between car and smartphone. The app represents the experience itself.
It allows for command and control of the car, and stores key vehicle information, like warranty details, owner manual and service bookings.
Best of all, the app is backwards compatible, meaning it can work with models built from 2017 onward.
With my car test partner Simon sitting inside Steve’s Pub and Restaurant in Port St John’s, we took control of the car: not only locking and unlocking, but also checking the mileage, oil and fuel level.
The extra time inside meant the car was going to be baking hot under the East Cape sun, so we started it to get the aircon going, 10 minutes before sauntering back to the vehicle.
When we opened the door – unlocked from a distance, of course – the cabin was as cool as when we had left it.
The independent app
Sadly, we had to take our leave of the Black Panther, but she still had a surprise in store via the app.
Although she was unpaired from the app once I got home, I discovered I could still use it independently to find paid parking near a meeting venue.
Yes, you can find parking on mapping apps, but Google maps shows every open, closed, paid and unpaid (ie not secure) parking area. Waze only shows parking in one’s vicinity. FordPass not only allows one to search around a destination – and therefore plan the route in advance – but also indicates the hourly cost of parking.
None of this is ground-breaking. The exciting aspects of FordPass are that it is a well-integrated package, it works seamlessly, the lag between hitting the right button and the car responding has been reduced dramatically, and having this tech in a bakkie marks the beginning of connected car functionality coming to mass-market vehicles.
“We’re looking at it in terms of baby steps,” says Kuda Takura, smart services lead at Ford South Africa. “It’s the start of the journey which allows us to introduce those types of features. They prove the capability to utilise the growing speed and pace of internet networks and 4G connectivity, and in some quarters 5G, and pulling together where smartphones are today as well.
“We have arrived with a consistent, well-structured, fully functional application that is going to start a much more detailed journey around what we can actively do with data to better the lives of our customers.”
Once the tech is more broadly rolled out, he says, Ford will probably go back to the market for insights, speak to engineering teams and look at engagement data.
“There are two aspects of this. The one is from what customers have willingly opted into. There’s a lot of detail they can look at on our website as well as on the application to understand what’s being shared, and the vehicle also allows them to detail what they are comfortable sharing.
“On the other side, the ideas are limitless. For example, in the Ford Credit space we can look at it as a means by which we can reduce instalments on vehicles. We can potentially look at your profile and say, perhaps we signed you up to a contract where you are driving 20 000 kilometres per year, and you’re being billed accordingly. But in these Covid-19 times, for example, you’re only doing 12 000km. Can we then take that information and structure a better deal for you, presented to you in a manner that is personalised?”