Open letter to Ford Motor Company

Dear Ford,

Don't ever think I don't like my new Fusion Energi.  It's literally the best car I've ever had.  But you have made some extremely annoying, unsettling or just plain counter-productive decisions (or bugs) in the software, and I wish you'd fix them.

Some of these are weird behaviors that have no obvious explanation:

1. The other day I was on a relatively long trip driving on cruise control, and the graphics around the "ECO" symbol on the left-side dash display changed to vertical dotted lines.  This has happened before, but what followed had not.  From time to time the right-side dotted line flashed red, accompanied by a pattern of 3 pulsed vibrations on the right side of the car.  There was no text pop-up to explain what was going on, and obviously it is not safe to search the owner's manual while driving.  I was eventually persuaded to pull over and examine the tires to see if something was wrong with them.  I found nothing, and the strange behavior went away after the stop.  I still have no explanation for this.
2. Sometimes when I park and return to the car, the side mirrors are turned all the way down and I have to reset them properly.  This has occurred on any number of occasions, sometimes after just minutes away.
3. There is a bug in the charging system.  Sometimes when I plug in a charger, the car does not recognize it and refuses to charge.  The charger can be un-plugged and re-plugged as many times as desired, and the car will still not charge.  I had the convenience cord replaced under warranty because of this, with no change; I later reproduced this problem on a public charger.  I finally discovered that cycling the ignition would get the car to charge.

But my biggest irritations are things that I ought to be able to get, but you deny me.

• The 12-volt power points shut off when the ignition is off, even when the car is plugged in and charging.  There should be no danger of running down the accessory battery, so I fail to see the justification.  Maybe I'd like to leave devices plugged into charge; why can't I?
• Even worse, the 150-watt AC outlet in the center console doesn't work at all when the car is charging, even when the ignition is on!  I may have 3 kilowatts coming in through the socket on the fender, but I can't get a lousy 150 watts to charge a laptop.  That requires a second cord running to another outlet... IF one is available.  It is bizarre to be able to run the car's air conditioning from "shore power", but not a single AC-powered device.
• And at the very basics, how about the electrical specs for the charging port?  I am interested in buying a 220 volt charger to install at home.  Of course, I am interested in getting the best charging performance the car will allow, for my own convenience and to electrify as much of my driving as I can.  I can get chargers that go all the way up to 30 amps, but the higher currents cost more money.  How much current will the car accept?  YOU WON'T TELL ME!  There is NOTHING on the car, in the owner's manual, or on-line that lists the basic electrical specifications that you'll find on a string of Christmas lights.  How about coming clean here?  My laptop power brick says "INPUT:  100-240V~ 50-60Hz 1.5A", it won't kill you to do the same.

If you really want to thrill me, open up the full specs for the car's high-voltage systems and put me in touch with your product-development engineers.  There are a whole heap of options and applications that you haven't touched, and all you need to turn the marketplace loose is an open specification for plugging in.  Play your cards right and you could start the PC revolution, only with plug-in vehicles.  Think about it.  But don't think too long, because the rest of the world is ready to steal a march on you.  ¶ 12/14/2013 03:47:00 PM