My Bluecruise thoughts

[YunniorO]

All

Activated my 3 month Bluecruise trial and used it on the M25 and M40 on and off during a 160 miles trip. My thoughts are whilst its good it really isnt worth £18 per month. It steers the car well but to me its just adaptive cruise with steering funtionality, nothing more. One thing I did find is it actually improved my concentration, i had just got back from a 12 hour day flight so not uber tired but nevertheless I found myself more focussed, maybe this would change after you got use to bluecruise though.

I really cant see how Ford can justify £18, and cant see it being popular in the UK as unless the motorways are pretty dead its like adaptive cruise where you end up fiddling with it all the time.

I wish my renewal was going to be $18 - I pay more for other less useful subscriptions. I understand not wanting to in the UK though, the US has a lot more Blue Zones than the UK.

Sponsored

 

[ChasingCoral]

</rant>
My '21 Job One is on BC 1.0 and it's trial subscription runs out the end of this month. I'm at 6.6.0 Power Up (with a handful of recent downloads as well) after getting no OTAs since mid October. I received emails and paper mail in July stating that the latest BC was coming. Yet, I am being urgently solicited to dump an amount of cash in for an unfinished product that isn't fully developed (behind by two point releases), and no firm commitment for when it will arrive. That is all bass-ackwards from my perspective. The flow of updates is/has always unpredictable even as my vehicle is always in readiness on home WiFi with a permanent schedule for download. It is a sloppy and ambiguous way to run an operation, IMHO.
</rant>

So give it another week before you decide. It's not the end of the month yet.

 

[Mirak]

Shhhhhh… don’t tell anyone but there’s no way that $800 annual price sticks. Expect some fun “promotional pricing” to follow. I have absolutely no insider knowledge of this, just enough common sense to know how marketing works and that Ford’s MSRP for BC is gonna have virtually zero takers.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Shhhhhh… don’t tell anyone but there’s no way that $800 annual price sticks. Expect some fun “promotional pricing” to follow. I have absolutely no insider knowledge of this, just enough common sense to know how marketing works and that Ford’s MSRP for BC is gonna have virtually zero takers.

You can’t get deep discounts unless a product is overpriced to begin with, right?

 

[Vulnox]

Yes mate adaptive cruise is free

Just to clarify because between this and your original post, Blue Cruise is not adaptive cruise with steering functionality, that entire part is included and not BlueCruise.

The only thing that makes it become BlueCruise is the hands free part, where you don't touch the steering wheel at all. With regular "Advanced" Adaptive Cruise the car uses lane centering to do steering assist, but you have to keep a hand on the wheel.

Then there is Adaptive Cruise, which has no lane centering and just maintains distance between you and the vehicle in front.

BlueCruise 1.3/1.4/whatever includes automatic lane changes, in-lane reposition (for when a vehicle comes over your way), and better lane centering I believe.

You may know all that, but your original post and this follow up gives some indication that you (and others on this site) believe BlueCruise is lane centering, but that is not the difference. Even if you don't pay for BC, you still get lane centering.

 

[wenklaw]

Just to clarify because between this and your original post, Blue Cruise is not adaptive cruise with steering functionality, that entire part is included and not BlueCruise.

The only thing that makes it become BlueCruise is the hands free part, where you don't touch the steering wheel at all. With regular "Advanced" Adaptive Cruise the car uses lane centering to do steering assist, but you have to keep a hand on the wheel.

Then there is Adaptive Cruise, which has no lane centering and just maintains distance between you and the vehicle in front.

BlueCruise 1.3/1.4/whatever includes automatic lane changes, in-lane reposition (for when a vehicle comes over your way), and better lane centering I believe.

You may know all that, but your original post and this follow up gives some indication that you (and others on this site) believe BlueCruise is lane centering, but that is not the difference. Even if you don't pay for BC, you still get lane centering.

My point to be a little more concise is that BC doesn't seem to add a great deal to what the car has as standard and is not worth £18 a month

 

[Mirak]

Just to clarify because between this and your original post, Blue Cruise is not adaptive cruise with steering functionality, that entire part is included and not BlueCruise.

The only thing that makes it become BlueCruise is the hands free part, where you don't touch the steering wheel at all. With regular "Advanced" Adaptive Cruise the car uses lane centering to do steering assist, but you have to keep a hand on the wheel.

Then there is Adaptive Cruise, which has no lane centering and just maintains distance between you and the vehicle in front.

BlueCruise 1.3/1.4/whatever includes automatic lane changes, in-lane reposition (for when a vehicle comes over your way), and better lane centering I believe.

You may know all that, but your original post and this follow up gives some indication that you (and others on this site) believe BlueCruise is lane centering, but that is not the difference. Even if you don't pay for BC, you still get lane centering.

(Hint: everything you said about BC used to be true, but is now wrong as of about 18 months ago).

 

[ChasingCoral]

Just to clarify because between this and your original post, Blue Cruise is not adaptive cruise with steering functionality, that entire part is included and not BlueCruise.

The only thing that makes it become BlueCruise is the hands free part, where you don't touch the steering wheel at all.

Wrong.

Whlie your logic makes sense, that is not the terminology Ford is using. There are two “flavors” of BlueCruise: Hands-On and Hands-Free.

 

[Vulnox]

(Hint: everything you said about BC used to be true, but is now wrong as of about 18 months ago).

Which part is wrong? I know people get confused because when they turn on Cruise Control it says "BlueCruise Active" or whatever, but that's just a confusing programming decision, intended to say that BC is able to take control when the screen changes.

Nothing about the lane centering or anything else I said has changed to my knowledge, and up to July I worked at Ford and joined alllllll the town halls and all that. Per Ford's BC site: " Ford BlueCruise and Lincoln BlueCruise are hands-free highway driving features."

The mapping of the highways and maintaining those maps along with ongoing feature development (like lane changes) is what you're paying for. Not the hands-on lane centering and adaptive cruise.

 

[Vulnox]

Wrong.

Whlie your logic makes sense, that is not the terminology Ford is using. There are two “flavors” of BlueCruise: Hands-On and Hands-Free.

Someone needs to show me evidence, because I can't find any that indicate that is the case. All I ever see on this site is people that get confused because of the message on the screen, but have driven my 2021 F-150 without an active BC subscription and lane centering worked fine, and that was as recently as June of this year. And yes, it was a BlueCruise capable truck. I used BC the first year because they gave us "Free" time and then extended it since it was a Job 1, but it expired shortly before I turned in the truck so I never extended it. Hands-free didn't work, lane centering continued to work fine.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Someone needs to show me evidence, because I can't find any that indicate that is the case. All I ever see on this site is people that get confused because of the message on the screen, but have driven my 2021 F-150 without an active BC subscription and lane centering worked fine, and that was as recently as June of this year. And yes, it was a BlueCruise capable truck. I used BC the first year because they gave us "Free" time and then extended it since it was a Job 1, but it expired shortly before I turned in the truck so I never extended it. Hands-free didn't work, lane centering continued to work fine.

Watch this Ford video starting at 0:53. They clearly differentiate the two "Modes" of BlueCruise: Hands-Free Mode and

 

[PA27]

Loved my BC during the 90 day trial but on recent vacations, I rented two different bottom of the line KIA vehicles, no adaptive cruise or lane change but miles and miles with my hands safely in my lap. The tech is everywhere just rather or not it’s worth the price to you.

 

[blheron]

for me....I drive in a blue cruse road maybe twice a year for road trips. I can't see paying the 75/mo. or $600 for 3 yr. I really like it, Especially on long road trips as it does make your drive more worry free. Please Ford reduce your rates.

 

[Mirak]

Watch this Ford video starting at 0:53. They clearly differentiate the two "Modes" of BlueCruise

The other evidence would be that Ford clearly displays a “BlueCruise On” message when engaging LC/ACC nowhere near a hands-free “Blue Zone” and hands are still required. That would be the first clue.

What @Vulnox says may be “logical” but Ford’s branding… isn’t. So now we have Hands-On BlueCruise and Hands-Free BlueCruise. Maybe we were taking a page from Tesla.

 

[MuckyMach-e]

Only 50 km of mapped roads in the UK. It's a small country.

Actually 95% of the UK motorway network is covered (2,300 miles). I regularly commute from Liverpool to Wembley in London and 94% of the journey can be done hands free. Unfortunately I’m still waiting for the update to enable BlueCruise on my MY21 ?.

Sponsored