New infotainment for Falcon, Territory

Ford's final 'FG X' Falcon and 'SZ II' Territory will be the first vehicles in Australia to offer the car-maker's most advanced infotainment system ever, bringing dramatic improvements in connectivity and multi-media to the brand's two homegrown models.

The facelifted Falcon sedan and ute and Territory SUV will go on sale in late November, before being discontinued within two years by October 2016, when Ford Australia closes its factory doors for good.

But that hasn't stopped Ford from fitting both locally made models, which will feature mostly new sheetmetal but few other changes inside, with its new SYNC2 in-car communication and entertainment system – potentially as standard across the range – in a bid to boost its showroom appeal.

Ford today confirmed its second-generation infotainment system will make its Australian debut later this year, but would not say which model/s will play host – despite hosting an unprecedented 'Innovation for Millions' event attended by media from all over the Asia Pacific region, including China, India and Indonesia.

However, motoring.com.au has learned SYNC2 will indeed be the headline new technology for both the 2014 Falcon and Territory – the only major model releases to come from Ford this year.

As part of its role as one of just three product development centres in the Blue Oval world, Ford Australia was responsible for adapting SYNC2 for all Asia Pacific markets.

Following its local debut in the Falcon and Territory, SYNC2 will be progressively fitted to all other Ford Australia vehicles, including the four new models it has confirmed for next year.

They are the Mondeo (due in the first half), Everest (mid-year), Mustang and facelifted Focus and Focus ST (all in the second half) – and perhaps even the upgraded Ranger due around mid-2015.

Released in the fresh Focus in North America and Europe this year, SYNC2 is Ford's most advanced voice-operated infotainment system to date.

Significantly improving on the original Ford SYNC system co-developed with Microsoft first revealed in 2007 – two days before Apple launched the iPhone, it is built around an 8.0-inch high-resolution colour touch-screen display, with a home screen split into four colour-coded quadrants covering navigation, phone, media and climate.

SYNC2 continues to incorporate Bluetooth device connectivity, audio streaming, up to two USB ports, an SD card slot and AUX jack, but its Nuance-based voice control system can now recognise up to 10,000 spoken commands and speaks back with an Australian accent just like Siri.

Other new SYNC2 features include the choice of advanced (fast) or novice (slow) modes, 3D navigation mapping, high-resolution image capability and simpler voice operation of navigation, music, climate control and linked smartphones.

Users can now just push the voice control button and say "I'm hungry" to bring up a list of local restaurants, before calling one to make a reservation and being guided to the location with turn-by-turn directions.

Other new natural language commands include "warmer" to increase the climate-control heating or, for example, "temperature 20 degrees" to be more specific.

As Ford demonstrated in a mocked-up electronic test rig of a Territory cabin fitted with the full suite of SYNC2 capabilities, the system now understands Australian addresses, allowing drivers to use voice control to say a whole address at once and letting SYNC2 work it out intuitively.

As well, a full address is no longer required for a point of interest location – for example, one can simply state "find a car park" and the system will do just that. It also now recognises voice tags like 'destination home' or 'destination work', although we wonder why you'd ever need to use them.

And while the original SYNC required a string of voice commands to play music from an attached smartphone, tablet or MP3 player, SYNC2 now only needs to be told the name of an artist or track, and will display cover art from compatible device.

Ford says the delay in offering SYNC2 in Australia was in part due to developing Asian language support (it even recognises Mandarin Chinese) and local content, although it does not support apps like Holden's MyLink system.

However, unlike its Holden equivalent, Ford's latest SYNC system continues to include an emergency assist function that automatically calls 000 if it detects you’ve been involved in a collision (ie: when an airbag is deployed, provided a phone is paired with the car).

If the emergency services operator cannot make voice contact with the vehicle's occupants, they can dispatch police, fire and ambulance services to your location using GPS co-ordinates from your phone, potentially saving lives in remote areas.

Therefore the Falcon and Territory should be the first Australian-made vehicles to directly contact 000 in the event of an accident, since the telematics-based Holden Assist service required a third party to contact emergency services and was shut down in 2010.

"Australian drivers are fast adopters of in-car technology, so we’re extremely excited to introduce SYNC2 to the ever evolving list of Ford-developed technologies Ford drivers can now experience while on the road,” said Ford Australia President and CEO, Bob Graziano.

"SYNC2 brings a new level of sophistication to voice control, allowing drivers to keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel."

Ford says SYNC is fitted to 10 million vehicles on the road today – a number that is forecast to reach 14 million by 2015.