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Whoa guys! Ford has been allowing end user firmware upgrades since the SYNC system was rolled out. The salesman even told me how to do it when we bought my wife's car two years ago. I've even done it myself through the Ford website. Also note, that this upgrade does not change the ECU, only the SYNC system. Also note, that this mass USB stick mailing is for MyFordTouch, not SYNC (MyFordTouch is built on top of the SYNC system, but includes a touchscreen, and are commonly confused).

In summary:
User firmware upgrades !new
User firmware upgrades !experimental
Mass USB mailings !SYNC
The only thing experimental is the mass mailing of USB sticks.

Sync is a lot more than a fancy radio control interface.

http://www.ford.com/technology/sync/features/

If think it's a bit naive to think that a piece of software could be written within typical commercial time and resource constraints and have no bugs.

Allow me to disagree with you on the Fusion (I'm biased, I drive one), especially the 2013 model.

To be fair, Manuals are hard to find on lots these days. Especially in some classes of cars... I'm surprised you can get a decent trim level Camry with a manual.

Also, there is no 6 Cyl or 4 Cyl Jetta in the current models, just the 2.5L 5 Cyl. Well there is the 4 Cyl TDI, and the 2.0T (in the jetta GLI), but I assume you were not looking at the diesel or the turbo. Nor are there jetta coupes... At least not here in the USA... Other countries may have those options.

Anyways, I'm not sure how that got messed up.

You could buy the S4 to get up to a 6 Cyl.

Also, I'm not sure why you couldn't get a ranger... http://www.ford.com/trucks/ranger/ perhaps the 2011 is the last model year...

You can contact Ford here. Especially those of you who own a Ford vehicle should consider writing to them. I doubt enough people would write to them to make a difference, but in the event that Ford did switch I think it would be a huge boost for us, as that would do a lot to kill the argument that the bill protects American workers and productivity.

Continuously Variable Transmissions haven't come close to automotive implementation yet

Way wrong there man...

My 2006 Ford Freestlye has a CVT, as do all of them from 2005-2008 along with the Ford Five Hundred and Mercury Montego.

There are quite a few Nissan and some models of Suburu that have them now. In fact just about every car maker has had a few models with them. The modern automatics are much more efficient then designs from just a few years ago, that has reduced the desire for CVT but they do not suffer from the loses that older automatic transmissions had. Remember back in the day when an automatic was always slower, sluggish, and got less MPG then the manual in the same car model? That is NOT the case any more. An exmaple here with a 2012 Ford Focus. http://www.ford.com/cars/focus/specifications/
26 city / 36 hwy / 30 combined (manual)
28 city / 38 hwy / 31 combined (automatic without SelectShiftâ)
27 city / 37 hwy / 31 combined (automatic with SelectShiftâ)
28 city / 40 hwy / 33 combined (SE Sedan with SFE Package)
The manual is rated for the lowest MPG for all options.

I should add, that the moment I heard that Google was releasing a smartphone OS aka Android, my first thought was "Nice. Now google can spy on everyone when they are away from their computer and follow their movements in the physical world."

Beware of free ice cream from pimply faced CEOs of publicly traded corporations who claim to have your best interests in mind.

This situation is only going to get worse. The same data collection practices concerning smartphones are being adopted by car manufacturers, and Google wants to use event data that your spiffy new car collects, in order to "predict" and "suggest" a route for you to travel. Do you really think Google ( and other companies active in this area ) are doing all this work for free because they like you ?

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=34591

An F150 has more 90 degree angles, the Silverado has more curve to the hood and truck bed.

http://www.chevrolet.com/silverado-pickups/
http://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/

The Tundra has more front end fender flare.
Rams have more open grills and try to look more like a tractor rig than a pickup.
The Titan has much more arc to the cab and windshield.

Thats how to tell the five full sized trucks apart.

I've been driving full sized Chevys since '85, I can identify pretty much every Chevy or Ford model since '71 by year.

If you actually need a van or pickup, you're screwed. If you don't, you're not screwed quite so hard.

Off hand I'd say that 70% of people driving pickups in Vancouver have no real reason for doing so - especially the F-350 behomoths. What would be really nice is something like the little Suzuki mini-trucks - that could fit the bill for a lot of people who need some hauling capacity, but not the hassle and weight of a full-size truck.

I often wonder why pick-ups keep getting bigger and bigger with each generation. The "small" Ford Ranger of today is about the size of "full-size" F-150 of a couple decades ago.

I'd say Ford's offerings are on par with what other car makers have to offer. The only place where they would be sorely trounced is in the diesel engine department where VW excels at making fuel efficient cars

You are correct about the US offerings, not in the rest of the world though.
Some examples...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm
http://media.ford.com/news/forddoubleat2011dieselcarawards.htm

Ford has the capability and has for decades, the US market does not want diesel cars or there is a massive conspiracy to keep them out. Either way, Ford is very capable of providing them.

Hello, did you even look or are you making things up? the fiesta IS certianly sold in the USA, they are all over the place. and he is only off by $3000 they are $15,000. same as the civic base DX is $15,000.....

http://www.ford.com/cars/fiesta/
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/price.aspx

try real info. he is pretty damn close. and he is correct, only a idiot would buy a leaf or volt at the current prices.

Is this the focus you want? (2012 model)

http://www.ford.com/electric/focuselectric/2012/?searchid=444987|32150650|210463862

Oh, under $30K well get it for near invoice and when our stupid gov't pays you $7500 you'll be close.

The Volt is a glorified taxpayer funded hybrid, if it takes gas it's not an electric.

He's probably thinking of corporate annual reports. The vast majority of the Fortune 1000 have really glitzed up their regulatory reporting over the past couple of decades. Random examples:

Ford Motor Company

Bank of America

Pepsi Corporation

http://autoshows.ford.com/ http://psiurpi.com/ http://www.rannieturingan.com/ http://lonnroth.info/ http://www.friskdesign.com/ ...

I looked at both Joomla! and Drupal but settled on Wordpress as a basis for setting up some freelance web development jobs. It was much easier to build a custom template from scratch by backwards engineering the default and customizing everything.

And for those who think it is only for blogs needs to look around a little. For example http://autoshows.ford.com/ is Wordpress.

This is a Ford car.

Didn't something like this happen to the hacker magazine, 2600?

http://slashdot.org/yro/01/05/18/1421201.shtml

It seemed like Eric Corely purchased the domain: http://fuckgeneralmotors.com/ and pointed it to http://ford.com/

I think it went to court. The last time it checked in, it was ruled in favor of Eric Corely, because it would otherwise violate his free speech.

How would this be any different?

Or even this?

The former is a blatant comedic stroke of genius. The second is the same as the squatter sites.

Of course, it isn't American so I'll no doubt get modded down by y'all.....

Surely, you're kidding.
Mazda is owned by Ford.

Then again, so is Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo.

GM cars are crap for mileage. Even the tiny Aveo gets crap mileage.. my Nissan Sentra from 1984 got 10mpg better than that car does.. and Aveo's not actually MADE in the USA! A model T gets 25mpg... and weighed close to a minivan, in 100 years we haven't done better?

I'm going a bit off-topic here, but looking around, Ford claims that the Model T was 20HP and had a max speed of 45mph. 13-21MPG. (Still better than some cars these days.)

Model T's were 1200LB (same source as above). Wikipedia lists the Toyota Corolla's curb weight nearly double that at 2304LB, yet my dad's gets over 40MPG. (Mostly used for highway driving.) We get similar for the Tercel. Of course, those are both Toyotas.

We should certainly be doing a lot better, I'll agree, but there are a lot of differences between the Model T and modern vehicles that help counter gains in engine efficiency. These days most people drive automatics, which hurts mileage. People drive faster. People want more horsepower. People want air conditioning. And sadly, a lot of people want really big vehicles.

Ford has come out with some nice mp3 capability over the years...

mp3 capable cd players avail on most models http://www.fordvehicles.com/util/uad/index.asp?nPo pupID=11938&iWinType=1
triptunes for enhanced mp3 player capability http://www.fordaccessoriesstore.com/fas/b2c/featur ed_accessories.asp?id=25
audio input jacks on most new models http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm ?release=23959
And now Sync http://www.syncmyride.com/

you may wish to check the source on that: http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_ id=858 Ford themselves say it got between 13 and 21 MPG. And it weighed 1200 lbs and had 20 HP, and had a top speed of ~45 MPH. have fun driving that around. apples/oranges comparisons are crap.

The model for websites is supposed to work something like this:

If only. Turn off JavaScript and try these sites:

• Ford Motor Company
• Jeep
• Credit Suisse

There is ONE mustang that is worth having, the GT500 Mustang .

At almost 500 HP bone stock for about $40K....it is a mustang to be sad about missing out on.

About those natural gas taxis... NGVAmerica says there are 150,000 natural gas vehicles on U.S. roads today and over 5 million worldwide. Apparently this includes at least 300 New York taxis (admittedly a small fraction of the city's 12,000 taxicabs).

Ford even offered natural gas as an option on quite a few cars in the late '90s and early '00s, including the Crown Victoria, but they apparently stopped offering it around 2003 and now it's only available as an aftermarket conversion. Fleets of taxis, buses, and delivery vehicles do use natural gas but few "normal people" do.

It's funny that at one time the same was said about the Ford Motor Co. In 1927 they built the 15 millionth Model T, a record that would stand until 1972, when Volkswagen built the 15 millionth VW beetle. Today, it's only their own PR people who think Ford is increasing their market share. Actually, their stock price has gone consistently down for the last three years.

As you see, there's no such thing as a company that will "always dominate". Considering that the software industry evolves much faster than the automotive segment, I don't think we will need to wait 45 years to see another company assume the predominance Microsoft has today.

Thats a pretty bad example to use under the circumstances

This article was confusing to me also until I read the press release by Ford-http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_displa y.cfm?release=25150. This is a hybrid in that it is powered by a Li-Ion battery and a Hydrogen fuel cell. There is a "350-bar hydrogen tank that supplies 4.5 kg of useable hydrogen". So you can plug it into the wall to recharge the battery but you must recharge the fuel tank with hydrogen. Also the battery only gives you a distance of 25 miles whereas the Fuel cell gives you 280 miles. There is no electrolysis.

For example, Ford has a concept truck that can run on gasoline, ethanol, or hydrogen. (Other auto makers also have concepts, no doubt.) Also, considering the fact that most people's daily commute is about 24 minutes (24 miles assuming average speed of 60 mph, which is generous), commutes are well within the range of electric vehicles (if anyone would sell one) or plug-in hybrids. That would allow the energy source for your car to be whatever is on the grid. Which allows wind, solar, bio-mass, nuclear, hydro, etc. to enter the picture. Furthermore, bio-diesel has to be considered as well. So, the long-and-short of it is that while ethanol cannot completely replace gasoline as THE next wonder-fuel, it is entirely feasible for all of our vehicles to be run using renewable energy. Besides, ethanol is produced locally and it reduces our dependence on foreign oil (that's for all those Republicans out there).

Huh? Are you crazy?

The _only_ place where we don't have a 100% ready replacement for oil is the transportation sector. That's it.
Replacements for oil, non-transport:
1. Solar
2. Nuclear (France already supplies 80% of its energy needs using nuclear power. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5369610)
3. Ethanol
4. Natural gas
5. Wind Power (this is another name for solar).
6. Coal
7. Geothermal
8. Hydropower, both tidal and gravity based. (this is _also_ another name for solar).

Using nuclear alone, there's no reason we couldn't sustain 100% of our needs, including all uses of electricity. Using currently avaliable, ethanol-powered vehicles, we could sustain our entire farm economy. Of course, there isn't enough ethanol to drive the _entire_ transport sector; we'd have to limp along with ethanol for light truck agricultural/farm usage, more sophisticated biodiesel for heavy industrial usage, and extremely expensive synthetical gasoline for individual usage. But in the intermediate term, assuming a huge spike in gasoline prices, there's no reason we could shift entirely to a biodiesel (non-corn based) transport economy. My company is involved in some next-gen biodiesel research, and assuming we can land some investment capital, we'll be moving along to the "development" phase. Our existing research has demonstrated that although corn simply isn't efficent enough to cover all of our fuel needs, there are most definitely high cellulose crops (I'm not going to disclose these here, but you can look them up; hint: look on Google scholar) out there that could easily sustain worldwide fuel usage several times over with a minimal amount of land/sea usage.

Assuming a radical shift in fuel prices, I'd also suggest that we'd see alteration in vehicle usage patterns, in the intermediate term. We'd see electric (and therefore nuclear) powered cars in urban areas, with minimal range and capacity. We'd see intracity "cruiser" style vehicles, using biodiesel or other forms of fuel. Perhaps we'll see the development of high-capcity fuel cells (fuel cells, in terms of fuel cycle, are functionally no different that high-capacity batteries. Conventional battery technology is kind of a dead-end, but fuel cells give us a different way to store and use electricity).

I can't discuss this matter in a Slashdot comment, really. There's just too much information, and too many possibilities, all depending upon the price of a gallon of gasoline. In the past, where gasoline was significantly cheaper than drinking water, it really didn't make much sense to look at alternatives. Now, with high prices, and higher prices on the horizon, alternatives are really taking off. The fundamentals of the problem come down to energy; whether you are talking about heating homes, running agricultural equipment, driving your kids to school, or moving tanks around; and ultimately, we're surrounded by vast resevoirs of energy ripe for the taking. We're far more apt to run into political conflicts than to run out of space and/or energy; the former is a social problem requiring social solutions, while the latter is a technical problems requiring a combination of technical solutions and social willpower.

Fortunately, in a free market, the latter (social willpower) is provided by high prices on pre-existing technical solutions.

There are still some unresolved technical concerns with the use of biodiesel at concentration greater than 5%. Some of the concerns are:
        Requires special care at low temperatures to avoid excessive rise in viscosity and loss of fluidity
        Storage is a problem due to higher then normal risk of microbial contamination due to water absorption as well as a higher rate of oxidation stability which creates insoluble gums and sediment deposits
        Being hygroscopic, the fuel tends to have increased water content, which increases the risk of corrosion
        Biodiesel tends to cause higher engine deposit formations
        The methyl esters in biodiesel fuel may attack the seals and composite materials used in vehicle fuel systems
        It may attack certain metals such as zinc, copper based alloys, cast iron, tin, lead, cobalt, and manganese
        It is an effective solvent, and can act as a paint stripper, whilst it will tend to loosen deposits in the bottom of fuel tanks of vehicles previously run on mineral diesel

https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/environmental_ vehicles/BiodieselTechnology.asp

just go to the website to see who they own...

I refer to the IMSA GTU class, where the RX-7 has won more races than any other model. In the GTO class, RX-7s won 7 years in a row, and 10 years in a row in the GTU class.

Other notable successes include racing against porsches and others around Bathurst in Australia (obviously this isnt directly relevant to claims of US racing success) - winning their classes in 92,93,94 and 95 before getting banned (They also banned Nissan skylines for making the aussie V8s look bad).

http://media.ford.com/mazda/article_display.cfm?ar ticle_id=19303

Take a look down towards the bottom of this page and you will see that in the 80s and 90s Mazda RX-7s and others were very competitive on the racetracks of the US.

For those who aren't in the know, Mazda is a division of Ford. Many of the cars use the same components and sometimes they are the same cars with different model names. People looking for a "japanese" car often buy Mazda not knowing they are buying a Ford. Go to the mazda site and compare some of the models to the ford site, the resemblance is uncanny ;)

Considering that Saab is owned by GM and Volvo is owned by Ford, I don't think the "Swedish" automobile industry is as important as you think.

blame America's financial problems on "The war on terror", what the hell about the expensive food, cloths, cars, houses, and other crap your favorite liberal democrat enjoys paid for by his government check coming from tax dollars??? you cant blame everything on Bush and conservative republicans...

Um, maybe because the expensive food, cloths, cars, houses, and other crap provides something back to the national industry, which is hard to say about the war on terror. Besides those government contractors that like to go around overcharging for their services, of course.

Ford does: Ford Commercial trucks. That 5.9L I-6 Cummins Turbo Diesel engine is commonly found in Dodge pickups. Granted that's not a dodge engine in a ford pickup, but still. Hmm, perhaps slashdot users shouldn't make car analogies; though my picking at this is about as bad as a grammar nazi.

"And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence." -Goethe

Conversely, I would be very disappointed if they used HP printers on Battlestar Galactica, or if the Nokia phones had made their appearance in the "real" world part of the Matrix, or if the Nebuchadnezzar had a blue oval on the front.

And who can forget Dr. Evil and Starbucks or the Pepsi in Wayne's World? (I really do have better taste in movies than this post would imply)

If you are fixated on going hybrid with an SUV, why not buy a brand new hybrid Highlander or Lexus? You'll spend as much and get the same marginal gas mileage increase, but you'll also get that new-car smell.

Or you could look at the Ford Escape Hybrid and enjoy upwards of 50% fuel savings in a brand-new 4x2 or 4x4 small SUV.

To put things into perspective; the Escape Hybrid has $0 fuel tax, whereas the Highlander carries a $75 tax. Why? The Highlander uses a large 6 cylinder engine and, as you said, only experiences marginal fuel economy improvements.

The Lexus is a nice SUV - but it comes at a Lexus price. A person driving a 12 year old Jeep Cherokee isn't likely to run to a dealer and drop $62,200 CDN (base MSRP) on a new SUV. Even the Highlander comes in at $44,205 while the Escape Hybrid starts at a reasonable $33,495.

The Escape Hybrid uses an Atkinson Cycle variant of their popular 2.3L Duratec engine which, in and of itself is a highly efficient, near zero emission engine. Combined with a 70KW electric motor it produces the same power as the V6 Escape.

The One Tank Challenge demonstrated that on a 62L gas tank it's possible to drive Toronto city traffic for 972 KMs getting better than 5.9L/100KM (or roughly 50MPG).

Ford/Volvo is doing safety testing for cars that will take over if the driver falls asleep at the wheel. http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm ?release=17087

Why hasn't anyone brought up ethanol yet with all this talk of "running out of oil"?
Take a look at some mass-market-appeal type vehicles. Flexible Fuel Vehicles can use E85 (85% ethanol) or regular gasoline, just fill it up with either.
some more interesting info.

It's more the case of (to use your example) Ford outbidding Mazda for the advertising space on their name. You search for Mazda and up comes Ford.

Anyway, I still don't see the issue with respect to Google. You can't buy "all the advertising space" related to your rival with Google, all you can do is have it so your advertising comes up if you search for that rival.

From the point of view of an end user, this is far from evil or misleading. This isn't about people trying to pass themselves off as a company, it's simply marketing to people interested in a particular product. If I search for "Biro", the chances are I want a pen. If I'm searching for something specific to Biro (like "How do I contact them about repairing this pen"), then the relevent links will appear on the left, as always. If I'm looking to buy a biro, then I'll be interested in the unobtrusive links on the right from companies that feel I may be interested in their product. Maybe I would prefer a Parker. Maybe I want to buy the Biro from WHSmiths.

I think the fairest comparison is actually Parker Pens going to a newspaper and saying "When you next do a story concerning Biros, can you put our ad next to it?"

That shouldn't be considered trademark infringment, and it's certainly not evil business practices. Trademarks were intended as a way to guarantee against fraud, as one group passing its products off as the other's. It strikes me that the laws here are being taken to go far beyond that remit, to the point that it threatens speech instead. If they carry on this way, just as the DMCA is undermining the legitimacy of copyright, and software patents the legitimacy of the patent system, they risk undermining trademarks too. Legislatures need to intervene and stop this abuse.

Bah, damn my lack of cut-and-paste abilities!

Ford.com

American auto companies are outfitting their fleet customers with alternative fuel vehicles. The government even provides incentives for meeting a certain percentage of alternative fuel vehicles in a fleet. GM's page on the subject has more information, as does Ford's alternative fuel fleet page and Chrysler's.

Nope. No company does research any more.

Don't forget the buggy whip manufacturers. That industry was decimated by technology and foreign competition. It may never recover.