This comes on the same day that Ford is set to start delivering the F-150 Lightning EV. It’s holding the launch event later today for it. It starts at $40,000, which is a pretty good price for an electric truck.
First F-150 Lightning models will ship with Sync4, 2023 models will ship with Android Automotive
It’s a bit of a bummer, but it looks like the F-150 Lightning is going to be fragmented a bit. As the early models are going to ship with Ford’s Sync 4 platform. Then those 2023 models will ship with Android Automotive, as well as future Ford vehicles. On the one hand, it’s good to see that Ford decided not to delay the launch of the F-150 Lightning until Android Automotive was complete. But on the other, many were likely looking forward to having Android Automotive on their F-150 Lightning. Seeing as Ford’s own software is, not that good. It’s better on their EVs like the Mustang Mach-E, but Android Automotive is definitely better. Ford CEO Jim Farley said today that, “we’re making a lot of progress. I’m very impressed with the team Google has put in place. They’ve been very accommodating – you can imagine that we don’t want a generic solution for the instrument panel for Mustang. We want, like, line lock to do a burnout. but it is slightly delayed, so that’ll be later in the fall.” We don’t yet know what other models are set to get Android Automotive, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Mustang Mach-E come with Android Automotive starting in the fall.
