New Ford Mustang Will Be “Much More Difficult” To Tune For This Reason
The all-new Ford Mustang was unveiled last month, and while many components have been carried over from the previous model, Ford has made a big deal about the car’s new electric architecture. However, it turns out that the new Fully Networked Vehicle (FNV) could pose some serious problems for third-party modifiers.
Chief Engineer for the Mustang program, Ed Krenz, recently told Ford Authority that the new S650-generation Mustang will be “much more difficult” to tune as a result of its new FNV technology.
According to Krenz, the FNV system is encrypted to protect the driver’s personal data, making the car’s software almost impossible to access for third-party tuners. If the car detects that someone is trying to access or modify the vehicle’s code, the car can automatically shut itself down and prevent any kind of access.
See also: Awkward: Ford Having To Debadge Cars As It Runs Out Of Its Own Badges
Installing upgraded third-party engine components will still be possible with the new Mustang, but owners probably won’t be able to tune their cars to take advantage of any hardware upgrades.
The locked-down FNV will be bad news for many third-party tuners, but Ford will probably try to capitalise on its customer’s thirst for more power. The American carmaker currently offers a host of manufacturer-approved tunes for the outgoing generation 2.3-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost Mustang and 5.0-litre V8 model, so don’t be surprised if the American carmaker offers similar upgrades for the upcoming ‘Stang.
The new Mustang isn’t the first American performance car to feature a locked-down electric architecture, as the current Chevrolet Corvette C8 also makes use of a similar system. The trend could spell bad news for many third-party car modifiers, but are big car manufacturers doing this intentionally to corner the market on tuning, or are they right to safeguard drivers’ data?
Next up, check out New Ford Mustang Is Going Racing Pretty Much Everywhere, Including Le Mans
Comments
First of all, why is your car collecting data that is valuable enough to encrypt, and why can you not view the data the car has on you? Second of all, why is there a need to encrypt data of the engine management, when surely all the actual valuable data is linked to the navigation, in car entertainment systems and features that connect to your phone etc? Why aren’t they just two separate systems? Regardless, im pretty sure someone will either break the encryption, or just create a piggyback ecu to remap the engine how you please, or just a whole new ecu alternative.
First of all cars have been using CAN Bus for close to 30 years now and FNV is just the marketing term for the next step in that technology.
There’s also no mention of you not being able to access your data so I don’t know where you get that from, cars have been taking your information for over 10 years now without any type of encryption and in many cases even over open channels (phone book and call sync and so on).
And all that “it’s encrypted and protected” thing was even true something like close to 25 years ago when we tried to crack Porsche’s ECU’s or Subaru’s data tables and we managed to get in, so no worries there.
“FNV system is encrypted to protect the driver’s personal data”. Oh, yeah, the generic “for your safety” argument.
But just like most other cars with encrypted ECUs, they’ll get cracked.
Y’all remember this? https://www.cobbtuning.com/the-uncrackable-gt-r-r35-ecu/ The “uncrackable” ECU of the GT-R R35.
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