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Ford launches hands-free BlueCruise with 'Mother of All Road Trips'

The technology debuts later this year on the F-150 and Mustang Mach-E

Jil McIntosh
Apr 14, 2021  •  September 2, 2021  •  2 minute read  •  Join the conversation
Ford BlueCruise hands-free technology
Ford BlueCruise hands-free technology Photo by Ford

Ford has finished up its “Mother of All Road Trips,” including in five Canadian provinces, as it prepares to roll out its new BlueCruise hands-free highway driving technology.

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The 177,000-kilometre trip, across the U.S. and Canada, took Ford engineers into Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario, where they visited as many National Parks as possible during the event.

The technology will debut later this year when it’s sent out as an over-the-air update to F-150 and Mustang Mach-E models equipped with an optional Ford Co-Pilot 360 Active 2.0 Prep Package. Ford said more models will be added later on, and its goal is to sell more than 100,000 vehicles equipped with it in the first year.

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The technology allows the vehicle to drive hands-free on divided highways mapped by Ford’s system. Currently, the system works on more than 177,000 kilometres of these “pre-qualified” highways in North America.

The trip followed 805,000 kilometres of development testing, and was intended to prove the technology in a range of driving and weather conditions. Along with the five provinces, it also went through 37 states. One vehicle left from Palo Alto, California, while nine more departed from Dearborn, Michigan, and drove during November and December.

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“There are highway intricacies and driving conditions that you simply cannot replicate in a lab,” said Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief product platform and operations officer. During their trips, engineers monitored the technology’s performance, collected data, and noted where improvements could be made.

The trip also allowed the technology to look for variances in road signs, lane markings, exit ramps, and traffic patterns. The BlueCruise system starts with Ford’s existing adaptive cruise control, lane centring, and speed sign recognition, and adds advanced camera and radar technologies.

Ford SuperCruise Highways
Ford SuperCruise Highways Photo by Ford

It also uses a driver-facing camera to monitor the driver’s head and eye position, to be sure he or she is looking at the road.

Ford said the system is similar to Tesla’s Autopilot or GM’s Super Cruise, but uses unique methods to communicate with the driver. Future improvements to BlueCruise will include lane-change assist, where the vehicle changes lanes when the turn signal stalk is tapped; predictive speed assist that adjusts speed for road curves or roundabouts; and mapping updates that add newly-added roads to the system, or changes in existing ones.

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