Ford is releasing software updates to make improvements. Hyundai couldn't make the improvements with software so they made it with their wallet.
If they already have the software updates then they've been working on it for months, if not over a year. I work in engine developement and have an idea of what the budget is for developement based on how many people are working on it for how long and what they make. ford probably spent as much on developement (to get from the time of release state to now) as hyundai spent in paying people off.
Which almost makes it worse that they gave the innaccurate figrues to start with. I can see how it happened but that doesn't excuse it...those were the original goals, they didn't want to back down, and they just needed more time to reach them. They probably planned on doing it a lot quieter like a dealer bulletin ("if customer complains about poor mileage, offer software update") or something.
Sort of like the differences in marketing between apple software updates and android: Apple works on it in-house without telling people and only has to validate it on a relatively small number of hardware platforms. THEN they announce it and release it and the carriers test it (again, relatively small number of hardware platforms) and bam, done. Android OS gets updated, then all the hardware mfrs have to test it (on everything, prioritized by newness), then the carriers have to test those (again, many devices, prioritized by newness), which is why it takes 6 months to never to get android updates wheras apple device updates seem immediate. (I still don't like apple but there are other threads for that debate)
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