Ford’s BlueCruise allows for true hands-free driving on prequalified sections of divided highways that make up over 130,000 miles of North American roads. Ford Motor Company continues its commitment to hands-free driving with the launch of Lincoln ActiveGlide 1.2 and BlueCruise 1.2 with new features, including hands-free lane changing and system updates to create more of a human-like driving feel.
This fall, three new features will be coming to the next generation of BlueCruise 1.2, starting with the 2023 Mustang Mach-E. New features include hands-free lane changing, providing easier passing, repositioning in-lane for better lane control, and the ability to reduce speed depending on road conditions with predictive speed assist.
Ford engineers are dedicated to improving the automaker’s advanced driver-assistance capabilities. In addition to refining the driving experience, they have been steadily improving maps with over-the-air updates that identify prequalified sections of divided highways where BlueCruise can be used which is currently more than 130,000 miles. BlueCruise-equipped vehicles can sense and help confirm lane lines are visible, the driver has their eyes on the road, and that traffic conditions are safe before transitioning to hands-free driving. BlueCruise uses animated transitions featuring text and blue lighting cues to communicate that the feature is in hands-free mode. These cues are effective even for those with color blindness. Impressively, more than 75,000 Ford and Lincoln owners have enrolled in BlueCruise and ActiveGlide, logging over 16 million hands-free miles were logged by August 2022.
As Ford shifts towards an electric future, with the commitment for the majority of their production to be EV by 2025, it will be interesting to see what other innovative and adaptive features they have up their sleeve as they compete with big brands like Tesla.
