WattsUp
Well-known member
Ever since the site/app update in October, I've had issues with my charging locations being routinely mis-identified. Often, a new "unknown" charging location would appear within MFM the next time I charged at a supposedly already "known" charging location (that I had previously named within MFM). So, I would try deleting the old "duplicate" location, name the new one, and expect it to "take over". But, sure enough, eventually another "unknown" location would appear within MFM after charging at the same physical spot sometime later.
At first, I chalked all this up to "awesome new flakiness" added during the site/app update, but I now think that I've found a possible explanation...
It seems that "somewhere" within the MFM systems, the GPS coordinates of charging locations are now aligned on a "virtual grid" with a spacing of approximately 200 x 250 feet. I discovered this while looking at multiple charge locations that were recorded when I charged in the vicinity of my workplace (where I actually have a few different physical charging spots to choose from).
Below, you can see some examples of apparently grid-aligned charging locations (as displayed by the MFM website map) superimposed with a partial, regularly-spaced grid that I've added (the purple lines):
(Note that I did not physically park at any of these green icon locations as shown on the map... a couple of the locations shown are even impossible places to have positioned my car.)
I believe this grid system was some (not so) clever MFM engineer's idea of "more consistently" identifying the known charging location whenever the car charges in the same physical spot. Unfortunately, this was a terrible idea, and can easily end up having exactly the opposite effect.
The problem appears to be: If the car's coordinates happen to be near the center of a virtual grid area, MFM can end up "randomly" identifying the same physical spot as one of up to four possible known charging locations (that may exist on each corner of the grid area) due to slight variances in GPS accuracy that can occur from time to time, or even just slight differences in the car's actual physical position (that otherwise should not affect the charging location identified).
In fact, the resulting charging location mis-identification happens to me often. In the first image above, note that my car (located at one of the physical charging spots that I use at my workplace) happens to be somewhat near the vertical center of the two upper grid-aligned locations that MFM knows about for me. MFM actually often reports one or the other of these two locations when I charge in the very same physical spot. A similar thing happens with the two lower grid-aligned charging locations that MFM knows (when my car is charging as shown the second image above).
And the same phenomenon occurs elsewhere, like when I charge at home... in my freaking garage! According to the MFM maps, my garage apparently sits almost dead center (horizontally) of a grid area:
(Note that the super-imposed lines in this image are spaced exactly as in the other images, showing that the grid alignment is consistent from place to place. And, again, neither of the green icon locations is where I actually parked my car... whereas the blue icon location quite accurately indicates where my garage is located.)
When I charge at home, MFM will often identify one or the other of these grid-aligned locations as where my home charge occurred... but, when I'm at home, I'm always charging only in the same "tight" physical spot in my small suburban garage. The car is never more than a few feet away from any prior location it has ever had within the garage. Certainly this physical spot should always be identified as the same MFM charging location... but it isn't. If this sort of "parked-at-home-in-my-garage" scenario isn't THE use case when one would expect consistent identification of a known charging location, I don't know what is!
Based on my experience, when the car's physical location is near the horizontal or vertical center of a virtual grid area, the MFM charging location identification seems to be very sensitive to the slightest variance in GPS coordinates along either axis. This is why the grid idea is so bad... as implemented, it seems to be very crude, and regularly fails to come up with the right answer, at least in my cases.
I was initially so annoyed and confused by this behavior (well, I still am!) but now at least I think I understand why it occurs. It is happening because of really poor software implementation choices that the MFM engineering staff didn't really think through (or at least adequately test). As a software engineer myself, I am just flabbergasted at this apparent failure to robustly implement what should be a fairly simple software function (at least certainly for a company that has been able to do things like provide functioning GPS navigation systems in their vehicles for many years now). Ford is a huge, global corporation... and here we have what appears to be very poor quality software development being done to support MFM and the FFE.
I also very strongly believe this grid alignment system was pushed out as an "improvement" with the October update, since the strange mis-identifications never happened to me before then -- and I have been charging at the exact same physical work and home locations since before and after the update. In fact, prior to October, I distinctly remember seeing the (single) green icon closely butting up against the blue icon whenever my car was parked at a known charging location. The icons often basically overlapped. It all made much more sense, and worked much more reliably. But, the new grid-aligned system has only made things worse... especially with the potential to badly affect Value Charging (see my final comment below) which is the last thing Ford needed to screw up even more.
Anyway... Is anyone else seeing similar behavior? Do my observations here seem to explain it? Does anyone also see what appear to be "grid-aligned" charging locations shown on their MFM charging location map?
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Final thought: I personally don't use Value Charging, but I could imagine how this ill-conceived grid system could wreak havoc on those that do. You might need to set up two (or more) charging profiles for the same physical spot (such as your garage) in order to get things to work as desired at all times. And then of course also keep all those multiple profiles in sync if a change is ever needed. What a hassle!
At first, I chalked all this up to "awesome new flakiness" added during the site/app update, but I now think that I've found a possible explanation...
It seems that "somewhere" within the MFM systems, the GPS coordinates of charging locations are now aligned on a "virtual grid" with a spacing of approximately 200 x 250 feet. I discovered this while looking at multiple charge locations that were recorded when I charged in the vicinity of my workplace (where I actually have a few different physical charging spots to choose from).
Below, you can see some examples of apparently grid-aligned charging locations (as displayed by the MFM website map) superimposed with a partial, regularly-spaced grid that I've added (the purple lines):
(Note that I did not physically park at any of these green icon locations as shown on the map... a couple of the locations shown are even impossible places to have positioned my car.)
I believe this grid system was some (not so) clever MFM engineer's idea of "more consistently" identifying the known charging location whenever the car charges in the same physical spot. Unfortunately, this was a terrible idea, and can easily end up having exactly the opposite effect.
The problem appears to be: If the car's coordinates happen to be near the center of a virtual grid area, MFM can end up "randomly" identifying the same physical spot as one of up to four possible known charging locations (that may exist on each corner of the grid area) due to slight variances in GPS accuracy that can occur from time to time, or even just slight differences in the car's actual physical position (that otherwise should not affect the charging location identified).
In fact, the resulting charging location mis-identification happens to me often. In the first image above, note that my car (located at one of the physical charging spots that I use at my workplace) happens to be somewhat near the vertical center of the two upper grid-aligned locations that MFM knows about for me. MFM actually often reports one or the other of these two locations when I charge in the very same physical spot. A similar thing happens with the two lower grid-aligned charging locations that MFM knows (when my car is charging as shown the second image above).
And the same phenomenon occurs elsewhere, like when I charge at home... in my freaking garage! According to the MFM maps, my garage apparently sits almost dead center (horizontally) of a grid area:
(Note that the super-imposed lines in this image are spaced exactly as in the other images, showing that the grid alignment is consistent from place to place. And, again, neither of the green icon locations is where I actually parked my car... whereas the blue icon location quite accurately indicates where my garage is located.)
When I charge at home, MFM will often identify one or the other of these grid-aligned locations as where my home charge occurred... but, when I'm at home, I'm always charging only in the same "tight" physical spot in my small suburban garage. The car is never more than a few feet away from any prior location it has ever had within the garage. Certainly this physical spot should always be identified as the same MFM charging location... but it isn't. If this sort of "parked-at-home-in-my-garage" scenario isn't THE use case when one would expect consistent identification of a known charging location, I don't know what is!
Based on my experience, when the car's physical location is near the horizontal or vertical center of a virtual grid area, the MFM charging location identification seems to be very sensitive to the slightest variance in GPS coordinates along either axis. This is why the grid idea is so bad... as implemented, it seems to be very crude, and regularly fails to come up with the right answer, at least in my cases.
I was initially so annoyed and confused by this behavior (well, I still am!) but now at least I think I understand why it occurs. It is happening because of really poor software implementation choices that the MFM engineering staff didn't really think through (or at least adequately test). As a software engineer myself, I am just flabbergasted at this apparent failure to robustly implement what should be a fairly simple software function (at least certainly for a company that has been able to do things like provide functioning GPS navigation systems in their vehicles for many years now). Ford is a huge, global corporation... and here we have what appears to be very poor quality software development being done to support MFM and the FFE.
I also very strongly believe this grid alignment system was pushed out as an "improvement" with the October update, since the strange mis-identifications never happened to me before then -- and I have been charging at the exact same physical work and home locations since before and after the update. In fact, prior to October, I distinctly remember seeing the (single) green icon closely butting up against the blue icon whenever my car was parked at a known charging location. The icons often basically overlapped. It all made much more sense, and worked much more reliably. But, the new grid-aligned system has only made things worse... especially with the potential to badly affect Value Charging (see my final comment below) which is the last thing Ford needed to screw up even more.
Anyway... Is anyone else seeing similar behavior? Do my observations here seem to explain it? Does anyone also see what appear to be "grid-aligned" charging locations shown on their MFM charging location map?
--------
Final thought: I personally don't use Value Charging, but I could imagine how this ill-conceived grid system could wreak havoc on those that do. You might need to set up two (or more) charging profiles for the same physical spot (such as your garage) in order to get things to work as desired at all times. And then of course also keep all those multiple profiles in sync if a change is ever needed. What a hassle!