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Ford Tested BlueCruise on ‘Mother of All Road Trips’

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BlueCruise offers hands-free driving in properly equipped 2021 Ford F-150s | Ford Tested BlueCruise on ‘Mother of All Road Trips’
Ford has tested its BlueCruise systems on hundreds of thousands of miles of road trips
Photo: Ford

Ford’s newly rechristened BlueCruise hands-free driving technology is coming later this year. To make sure that drivers can use it with full confidence when it drops, Ford tested BlueCruise on what it calls the “mother of all road trips.”


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Last year, five all-new Ford F-150s and five Mustang Mach-Es hit the road, covering 110,000 miles across North America completely hands-free. This road trip tested out the BlueCruise Hands-Free Blue Zones in 37 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces. The goal was to see how the tech held up in adverse conditions like bad weather and tough traffic.

After this mother of all road trips, which took place in November and December because it’s prime time for mothers and road trips, it was clear that Ford’s BlueCruise tech is up for the challenge.

Testing BlueCruise has been a team effort

Before Ford embarked on, let’s say it again, the mother of all road trips, it tested BlueCruise on over 500,000 miles of smaller trips. One of the participants was Alexandra Taylor, a BlueCruise development engineer who took an F-150 out for 3,000 miles of no-hands cruising. That included an eight-day trip around the eastern United States with BlueCruise engineer Shruti Gotadki.

“I drive long-distance quite often, whether out to Boston or down to Florida to visit family or friends, and usually I mentally tire out on drives that far,” said Taylor. “The one thing that became clear is that, when using BlueCruise, long drives aren’t nearly as mentally taxing to me.”

BlueCruise launches this year for F-150, Mustang Mach-E

Ford launches its hands-free driving technology later this year on the 2021 F-150 and Mustang Mach-E. The software will cost $600 for three years of access in addition to associated hardware costs. In its first year, Ford expects to sell 100,000 vehicles equipped with BlueCruise technology.

The availability of BlueCruise will expand to additional models in the future. Ford will also continue to expand its network of Hands-Free Blue Zones with over-the-air updates through SYNC 4.


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