Dumb Question about BlueCruise

[Jessifer]

I bought my 23 MME in March of 2024. I had a three month BlueCruise trial, which has obviously expired. Since I've had the car, I've been able to use the lane centering feature, where if I'm on a highway and have cruise control on, the "car" on the screen behind the wheel has a blue circle around it. The car then only needs minor adjustments from me on the wheel, and it requires me to still keep my eyes on the road.

My question is: is this feature BlueCruise? Or does it have a different name? After my trial expired, this feature stayed on my car and I noticed no changes. I believe BlueCruise is meant for hands-free driving (you don't need to have your hands on the wheel for a long time), and it's only usable on pre-approved roadways.

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[TheVirtualTim]

That’s normal cruise control with lane-keeping … but not hands-free (the car will scold you if you take your hands off the wheel for more than a few seconds).

BlueCruise hands-free causes the whole driver display background to turn blue with a hands-free image. If the car is in a “blue zone” you don’t have to touch the wheel at all.

 

[4sallypat]

You may have an auto extended BlueCruise past your 90 day trial ?

Does the screen look like this ?

 

[Jessifer]

You may have an auto extended BlueCruise past your 90 day trial ?

Does the screen look like this ?

It does not look like this. The hands-free wheel on the left doesn't show up at all. Thank you for the clarification!

 

[RickMachE]

When BlueCruise was first introduced, it referred to the handsfree component only. Everything else was called Co-Pilot360.

Ford then expanded the BlueCruise name to all of it, and now you "BlueCruise handsfree" refers to the handsfree mode, which is what the subscription is for.

Similarly, Ford introduced an app in the vehicle they called "Ford Charge Assist", to find public chargers. Then they renamed it "Ford Public Charging". Then, they discontinued it.

There are a group of people at Ford responsible for naming features. They live in a padded room and are fed daily, but have no exit.

 

[ChasingCoral]

I bought my 23 MME in March of 2024. I had a three month BlueCruise trial, which has obviously expired. Since I've had the car, I've been able to use the lane centering feature, where if I'm on a highway and have cruise control on, the "car" on the screen behind the wheel has a blue circle around it. The car then only needs minor adjustments from me on the wheel, and it requires me to still keep my eyes on the road.

My question is: is this feature BlueCruise? Or does it have a different name? After my trial expired, this feature stayed on my car and I noticed no changes. I believe BlueCruise is meant for hands-free driving (you don't need to have your hands on the wheel for a long time), and it's only usable on pre-approved roadways.

I call that the Blue Bubble of Happiness!

It's not called BlueCruise anymore. That's now called Adaptive Cruise Control with Lane Centering and is what my Mach E had for the first year after we bought it in 2021 (until Ford released BlueCruise and brought it to the early cars via OTA). It works without a subscription and works on roads that are not in Blue Zones (Hands-free zones).

At one point Ford called it Hands-on BlueCruise (to separate it from Hands-free BlueCruise) but switched the terminology later.

If you want, you can resubscribe to BlueCruise whenever you want it, like for long road trips.

 

[RickMachE]

Oh crap, I missed a renaming in my timeline!

 

[rreddy3]

I bought my 23 MME in March of 2024. I had a three month BlueCruise trial, which has obviously expired. Since I've had the car, I've been able to use the lane centering feature, where if I'm on a highway and have cruise control on, the "car" on the screen behind the wheel has a blue circle around it. The car then only needs minor adjustments from me on the wheel, and it requires me to still keep my eyes on the road.

My question is: is this feature BlueCruise? Or does it have a different name? After my trial expired, this feature stayed on my car and I noticed no changes. I believe BlueCruise is meant for hands-free driving (you don't need to have your hands on the wheel for a long time), and it's only usable on pre-approved roadways.

You are describing Lane Centering. As others noted, it is not BlueCruise. See page 243 in the online manual for the beginning of the Lane Centering discussion.

When cruise control is off, the car still has an active Lane Keeping System with Alert and Aid modes. See page 263 for beginning of the LKS discussion.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

@Jessifer, BlueCruise features that your car doesn't have (unless you resubscribe) are Hands-Free, Lane Changing, "scutching" over when passing large vehicles, adaptive speed assist (adjusting speed based on speed limit signs [a feature most turn off because it is prone to error] as well as slowing for curves). All that said, the lane centering that you do have is really good and I presume the improvements made to that feature for those subscribed to BlueCruise would also apply to those who don't have the subscription (as long as their vehicle software is up to date).

 

[Jessifer]

All replies here have been really helpful. Thanks everyone! <3

 

[MBCook]

Wait, hands-on BlueCruise isn’t BlueCruise anymore and now has a 3rd name? ?‍

And I thought I was up to date with the nonsense.

 

[Tampamike]

All replies here have been really helpful. Thanks everyone! <3

And just for clarification (disregard if you knew this already), your Adaptive Cruise Control with Lane Centering operates with a torque sensor on the steering wheel. It senses your positive inputs left or right or your resistance to the car’s inputs left or right. I didn’t know that when I first got it and kept wondering why it was yelling at me. “My hands are on the wheel!”

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