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 way in which. 

The information comes by way of CarsDirect, which observed the function talked about in a Ford supplier communication despatched out this week, disclosing that every one Lightning homeowners would have entry to the function, 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 12 months, 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 linked to CarPlay and help you in your journey by including chargers into your journey as mandatory.”

Inexperienced Automobile Reviews 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 support 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 vitality use each step of the way in which and can adapt the path to elevation modifications 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 function set since 2020, and BMW was the primary model to declare that it might 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 primarily simply factors of curiosity at the moment. Solely earlier this 12 months did it announce a deeper degree of information 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 12 months, 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, aside from one other interface alternative. Ford notes that a variety of options stay accessible via its embedded navigation, when linked to the FordPass app, that aren’t supplied via Apple Maps—together with charging station availability, whether or not or not a station is Plug & Cost succesful (with cost particulars linked to a novel 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 also be including a Cost Help function that enables drivers to make use of the infotainment system’s display screen to search out, begin, and pay for a public charging station relatively than having to make use of the FordPass app or the charging community’s app. That function began to roll out in batches of car updates pushed beginning Sept. 4.