Article: Ford’s EVs, BlueCruise combine for better road trips -- Road-tripping in a Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum and Mustang Mach-E GT

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Ford’s EVs, BlueCruise combine for better road trips | Ars Technica


Until a long-promised future replete with driverless cars arrives, we're stuck behind the wheels of our own vehicles. Autonomous driving is slowly getting more… autonomous in places, but for passenger cars that still feature steering wheels, we still need to keep our hands on the wheel and eyes on the road—if you're not driving a GM with SuperCruise or a Ford with BlueCruise, that is.

Currently available only in certain trims of Ford's first two battery-electric vehicles, the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, BlueCruise enables hands-free driving on over 130,000 miles of divided highways around the US. It's essentially Ford's Co-Pilot 360 driver-assistance system paired with a set of cameras inside the car that monitor the driver's eyes to make sure they're looking at the road.

I recently got to spend a week each with the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT and F-150 Lightning Platinum, both of which are equipped with BlueCruise. Those two weeks also coincided with a positive COVID test for my son, a freshman at the University of Iowa. As that university's COVID policy for positive tests boils down to "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," and I had my own (mild) bout about a month prior (and was double-boosted), I was dispatched to retrieve the boy so he could isolate at home.

The biggest chunk of the ~215-mile route between suburban Chicago and Iowa City is Interstate 88, which is arguably one of the least interesting stretches of the Interstate Highway System. Along with I-294 and I-80, it has been mapped by Ford and is covered by BlueCruise. The prospect of over 850 miles of boring, back-and-forth driving suddenly seemed less onerous.

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Hammered

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Yes, I've got 2022 F150 PB (hybrid) w/ copilot 360 (blue cruise that doesn't watch your eyes), the mach e w/ BC, and a bolt euv w/ super cruise. SC (gm) only works in a mapped area (SOL if no mapping, no backup mode, it's working or not, period) whereas non-mapped areas default to copilot 360 (ford). What I find quite interesting however is that my F150's copilot will engage on far more roads than the mme will, and it's a larger vehicle. I'm kinda let down by the mme's system vs the F150s with fail to engage as often.

The MMEs system will however slow the vehicle down on turns where the F150s will not. These are turns (more like curves) known to me and despite the MME letting up ~8mph, it's not needed.

Furthermore, the radar cruise in traffic is just flat out the best shit out there. Won't own another vehicle that can't do dynamic cruise.
 
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Yes, I've got 2022 F150 PB (hybrid) w/ copilot 360 (blue cruise that doesn't watch your eyes), the mach e w/ BC, and a bolt euv w/ super cruise. SC (gm) only works in a mapped area (SOL if no mapping, no backup mode, it's working or not, period) whereas non-mapped areas default to copilot 360 (ford). What I find quite interesting however is that my F150's copilot will engage on far more roads than the mme will, and it's a larger vehicle. I'm kinda let down by the mme's system vs the F150s with fail to engage as often.

The MMEs system will however slow the vehicle down on turns where the F150s will not. These are turns (more like curves) known to me and despite the MME letting up ~8mph, it's not needed.

Furthermore, the radar cruise in traffic is just flat out the best shit out there. Won't own another vehicle that can't do dynamic cruise.
Copilot doesn't need mapped roads - it's strictly hands-on. BlueCruise's mapped road requirement is for hands-free mode. On unmapped roads, you're basically getting newer Copilot software. In early Mach-E software, this wasn't called "BlueCruise", but Ford later rebranded it all "BlueCruise" so now the Mach-E will tell you BlueCruise is on for hands-on, and then change the indicators to hands-free with the blue background on the instrument panel when that's available. (I'm sure you've noticed all of this - this is more for new owners that might see this thread and are still learning this stuff.)

I've noticed that hands-free BlueCruise in the F-150 Lightning will engage more quickly, and more frequently, than it will in the Mach-E. I've also noticed that the Lightning will prompt with "BlueCruise is available" (forget the exact phrasing) in a mapped area while the Mach-E won't... for example, on I-90 by me, I'll get that prompt in the Lightning but not the Mach-E.

I'm guessing that the software isn't the same yet between them, but expect that when we get the fabled 1.2 update (mentioned in the article, also been mentioned on here plenty of times), that we'll see more parity between the two vehicles' BlueCruise implementations.
 

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I've also noticed that the Lightning will prompt with "BlueCruise is available" (forget the exact phrasing) in a mapped area while the Mach-E won't.
There is a checkbox in the cruise control settings in sync to turn this notification on or off. It works on my vehicle.
 

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GoGoGadgetMachE

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There is a checkbox in the cruise control settings in sync to turn this notification on or off. It works on my vehicle.
I'll have to go look for that. I don't remember seeing it. I don't remember seeing it in the Lightning, either, for that matter. I wonder if it defaults to "off" on "upgraded to BlueCruise" vehicles but "on" in "as shipped" vehicles.
 

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I'll have to go look for that. I don't remember seeing it. I don't remember seeing it in the Lightning, either, for that matter. I wonder if it defaults to "off" on "upgraded to BlueCruise" vehicles but "on" in "as shipped" vehicles.
It's been 8 months but my recollection is that the 'bc available here' notifications defaulted to off when my vehicle received its bc ota enablement updates.
 

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None of Ford's vehicles have this yet, but BlueCruise 1.2 will introduce "predictive speed assist" to slow down for curves in the road:
My MME since 353 has been slowing down in curves automatically. The F150 with copilot 360 will not.
 

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Interesting. I’ve turned on the BlueCruise notification alert, but I’ve never seen it pop up. I tend to drive in cruise almost all the time, so maybe I’m engaging BC too quickly before it bothers to tell me I’m in a BlueZone?
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