2024 Ford Mustang Might Be Arduous To Tune As a result of Of Cybersecurity

If an automaker doesn’t ship on energy or another efficiency metric, you possibly can at all times rely on the aftermarket and third-party tuners to ship. However that’s beginning to not be the case anymore as automakers bake in digital options third-party tuners can’t get round. Take the all new 2024 S560 Ford Mustang. Ford Authority experiences that third-party tuners are going to have a troublesome time attempting to tune the brand new Mustang on account of concern of it being hacked.

Ed Krenz, the Mustang’s chief engineer spoke with Ford Authority and gave a rundown on why third-party tuners may run into some hassle. All of it comes all the way down to cybersecurity. For no matter cause, Ford is anxious about automobile cybersecurity. This is the reason the brand new Mustang makes use of the corporate’s Absolutely Networked Car (FNV) structure, which permits for issues like over-the-air updates and cybersecurity encryption.

The draw back of that is that it primarily shuts down any third-party tuning as Ford Authority explains:

FoMoCo’s FNV electrical structure has lengthy been anticipated to make life harder for third occasion tuners on the whole, although that’s merely a byproduct of the automaker’s makes an attempt to maintain person knowledge – and their automobiles – protected from ever-growing hacking threats. Krenz and different S650 engineers defined that the whole stack on the S650 is encrypted, together with the ECU. Which means if the system detects a “break” in authentication, it’ll shut it down – or shut down elements of the automobile. So even when somebody had been to change one in every of these engines, they wouldn’t be capable to truly tune the automotive to take full benefit of it.

All isn’t misplaced, although, as Ford says it’s open to working with tuners on the S650 and that it’s additionally open to “providing efficiency enhancements or tunes” for the Ecoboost engine and 5.0-liter Coyote V8. Some might even see this as Ford clamping down on the aftermarket business to make sure that they get all that candy tuning cash for themselves. And whereas automobile hacking is a very actual risk, it sucks that automobile safety has come on the expense of tuning.