Ford Motor Company has decided to discontinue its ambitious project to develop a next-generation electronic control system, known internally as FNV4 (Fully-Networked Vehicle).
This system was designed to modernise vehicle software architecture and help Ford compete with electric vehicle leaders like Tesla. Sources familiar with the matter confirmed the cancellation to Reuters, citing escalating costs and delays as primary reasons.
Ford had invested heavily in FNV4 to create a unified electrical system that would reduce production costs, improve quality, and enable advanced features across both electric and petrol-powered vehicles. Despite the project’s termination, Ford plans to apply lessons learned from FNV4 to its existing software platforms and continue work through its California-based “skunkworks” team, which focuses on innovative software and affordable EVs.
Legacy automakers like Ford face challenges in software modernisation due to complex systems built from code supplied by numerous vendors.
Tesla pioneered over-the-air software updates, now a standard expectation among EV buyers. FNV4 aimed to implement a “zonal” architecture to simplify wiring and speed up updates, enabling monetisation of features via subscriptions.
The project’s development costs contributed to Ford’s software and EV losses of $4.7 billion in 2023 and $5 billion in 2024. Manufacturing complexities, including extensive wiring harnesses dubbed “copper anacondas,” further complicated progress. Ford’s cancellation of FNV4 displays the difficulties traditional automakers face in software innovation amid competition from agile EV startups.