Some tips and tricks for Focus Electric (and My Ford Touch) drivers

Here are a few of the tips and tricks that I’ve learned to use to make the most use out of My Ford Touch and the Focus Electric’s unique features:

My Ford Touch (MFT):

1. The first tip is to use voice as much as possible. Most reviews of MFT say it is far too distracting–sure it is if you’re always looking at the screen to press buttons. Don’t do that use the voice commands; that is what they are there for.
2. Go into “Settings -> Voice Control” and set all the voice prompt settings to “advanced”. This will reduce the amount of time that the car spends instructing you down to almost nothing (press the voice button and it will prompt with a single beep–much quicker than having to listen to: “Please say a command”)
3. The command structure is supposed to be flat but it isn’t quite enough. What I mean by this is: You first have to tell the system what you want controlled before controlling it. This means instead of just saying: “Tune to 96.1” you have to first say: “Radio” then “Tune to 96.1”. This applies to everything: First say the device you want then say the command (“Phone”, “Radio”, “Satellite”, “Navigation”, “Climate”, etc.).
4. The exception to #3 above is that some things you can always say: “Call Joe at home”, “Call dad at work”–assuming “Joe” and “dad” are contacts in your contact list.
5. Since MFT is based on windows you can upload a custom wallpaper to it and set your background (the home screen only). Go to “Settings -> Display -> Edit wallpaper” and plug in a USB flash drive with your images on it–you’ll first need to rescale the images to 800 x 384 though.

Focus Electric specific tips:

1. Charge using a Level 2 charger. You may be on the fence about getting a Level 2 installed at home–if you can manage it; do it. The faster charging time is worth it. You’ll find that quick 1/2 hour or 1 hour charges charge the car enough to make those extra trips you might have avoided.
2. If you are using “Value Charging”: Don’t use the canned times given by your electricity supplier, use custom times instead and program the car to charge at some point past midnight. I’ve found that value charging before midnight really messes with the displayed charge times. Since I’ve been charging at 1am the car has charged quite regularly at that time without missing a beat.
3. “Value Charging” tip #2: Program your weekend value charge times the same as the weekday. Sometimes MFT’s calendar is off by 1 day–by programming the weekend the same as weekday you won’t find it charging on Friday (or erroneously waiting to charge on Sunday). If you need to charge during the day on the weekends switch it over to charge now–just remember to switch it back before the week.
4. You can send navigation waypoints to the car using either the My Ford Mobile website, or the smartphone application. Once you’ve sent them via either method: in the car press the voice button and say “services” it will dial up and say: “MapQuest has sent an address…” just answer yes and it will download the waypoint into the car.
5. When using the nav system always tell the car you’ll be charging at the destination (even if you’re not). When the car thinks you’ll be charging the dash display switches to a range + extra display (detailed in this post). This display is really helpful with showing how much range you’ll have left over after you’ve made it to your destination.

I’ve been using these tips for a while now (in the MFT case for several years) while they don’t alleviate the most serious MFT bugs they do make using it much more satisfying.