Ford Announces 'Hands-Free’ Active Drive Assist With Driver-Facing Camera for Mach-E, Available Next Year with OTA Update

[Regularmache]

You may be surprised that we actually can land aircraft on aircraft carriers hands off to touchdown. I do like the parallel parking feature in my 13 Escape. It is fun to show off and works well. Sometimes too fast but it is easy to tap on the brakes.

That's because the Navy doesn't trust it's Pilots as much as the Air Force does theirs. ?

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[opennetus]

Right, and the handsfree is only on limited access highways between entering and exiting the road - so cruise control with lane centering by detecting the lines and other cars. AFAIK they have not mentioned auto lane changing or interchanges. Essentially all they are doing is removing the requirement to have your hand on the wheel to indicate that you're paying attention. It is up you if you want to keep a hand on the wheel

yes, it basically like paying $600 to turn off the “seatbelt is off” warning chime. It is dumb, in my opinion, to charge money for the right to remove a nag alarm. The actual lane centering and adaptive cruise control is no different whether you use the eye tracking camera (you already paid for) or the steering wheel torque sensor. Charging extra for the right to use the eye tracking sensor is just a money grab, in my opinion, and it will always be safer having your hand on the wheel as it lowers the reaction time in case you do need to take over suddenly.

It is like selling a more expensive phone that includes “Face ID” and then not allowing you to actually use the FaceID you already paid a premium for until you spend even more money. Imagine paying an annual subscription fee just to unlock your phone faster.

 

[dbsb3233]

yes, it basically like paying $600 to turn off the “seatbelt is off” warning chime. It is dumb, in my opinion, to charge money for the right to remove a nag alarm. The actual lane centering and adaptive cruise control is no different whether you use the eye tracking camera (you already paid for) or the steering wheel torque sensor. Charging extra for the right to use the eye tracking sensor is just a money grab, in my opinion, and it will always be safer having your hand on the wheel as it lowers the reaction time in case you do need to take over suddenly.

It is like selling a more expensive phone that includes “Face ID” and then not allowing you to actually use the FaceID you already paid a premium for until you spend even more money. Imagine paying an annual subscription fee just to unlock your phone faster.

While this will all be a new experience, my initial thoughts are that I won't need the upgrade. If I'm sitting in the driver seat, I need somewhere to put my hands anyway, so keeping one on the wheel most of the time is fine. It's just those 10-20 second times that I need 2 hands to reach for something or fiddle with something (without doing the knee thing to hold the wheel in place) that I want, and the car comes with that (before it starts to nag you).

I worry a bit about people getting the upgrade to enable eye-tracking instead, and then spending their time txting. Not sure how accurate the eye-tracker will be at making sure eyes are aimed above the dashboard rather than just forward where they could just hold their phone at steering wheel level.

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