My Impressions of BlueCruise after a 300 mile trip

[RMoore]

@RMoore don't let it get to you. I feel like you might be over thinking it all. Other than the piped in fake noise, the drive modes in the GT just don't do much.

One pedal driving will be very different at first, but it becomes second nature quickly.

I think L mode is kinda dumb... Auto hold I disabled. Be careful going into a car wash with auto hold on. It will prevent the car from moving unless it's disabled or you push L while in N. Another strange thing about auto hold is that when you get good at one pedal driving you don't use the brake meaning that auto hold doesn't engage anyway. The car doesn't roll even with auto hold off.

Not worried . I figure I will get through 1-3 in a few days but good that there are folks here to help!

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[dml105]

I think i missed a memo. How do you have BlueCruise already?

 

[DevSecOps]

How do you have BlueCruise already?

It comes loaded on the GT vehicles

 

[duneii]

The first in my "con" list is in regards to corners. Here's an area of a map where the system tells you in the display to "grab the wheel" and disables BC.

That does not look like a sharp curve for BC to disengage. I saw Sandy complain in one of his videos too. Hope Ford addresses this in a future update.

Curious: Would going at a slower speed not disengage BC at this curve? Wondering if Ford engineers tuned the settings to avoid BC going over a certain lateral g-force limit.

BTW: Nice writeup with good info for those of us we don't have BC yet.

 

[DevSecOps]

Would going at a slower speed not disengage BC

I'll give it a try tonight. I'm bringing my nieces/nephew back home later so I'll be more mindful of the comments here and try a few things out, document the conditions better and use the trip computer to record to and from with screen shots.

 

[DevSecOps]

I've said a few times throughout the thread that I had BC set to 80 both ways.

As for items being subjective... Everything is subjective. This is my review of the system based on years of driving similar systems.

EDIT: This post was originally a reply to a troll that was "moderated into oblivion"

 

[DevSecOps]

Ok so not to be taken rude but...

1. You will never convince me to go the speed limit on I-5 through central California
2. Your 4.0 mi/kwh is factually incorrect and will never happen. If it was possible the car would have a range of 352 miles which it doesn't have with only 88 kwh usable. If you are expecting this at 70mph (the speed limit) you should just cancel the order now.
3. Different cars get different mi/kwh. I drove many times from Oakland to Sacramento with an e-Golf averaging over 4 mi/kwh. This mach-E will not get that.
4. I purchased a GTPE to have fun with it. I didn't purchase it to get range, drive slow or save the environment. Everyone is entitled to purchase a vehicle for whatever reason they chose.

EDIT: This post was originally a reply to a troll that was "moderated into oblivion"

 

[DevSecOps]

Honestly, I think you must be a troll at this point...

You are showing me a picture of a BMW and I confirmed in my last comment that 4.0 is achievable in some vehicles. It is not at freeway speed with a Mach-E GTPE... Flat out FACTUAL

You do realize that the speed limit is not 25mph on a freeway right? In California it's 65-70, Nevada 70-80...

Here's, clear as day, a picture from the car with a freshly RESET range estimate to factory default and it shows a total of 245 - taken moments ago. Basic math ... 245/88 = 2.7mi/kwh

EDIT: This post was originally a reply to a troll that was "moderated into oblivion"

 

[secondBlueStang]

The disengagement of the system is very poor. In detail here's the issue ... The eye's on the road system prevents you from looking at the drivers display. If you look at the display for too long the system triggers an eye warning. So in other words, don't look at the display. But, and it's a big BUT, when the system wants to disengage for a corner or other reason it alerts you in the very display the car doesn't want you to look at. There's no audible alert or other notification that you need to resume control. If this was a hands on system like Audi/VW and other brands it wouldn't matter because your hands are still on the wheel. But that's just not the case here.

can you explain what you don’t like here a little more? Is it the lack of a chime? Or the eyes off warming? Something else?

 

[DevSecOps]

can you explain what you don’t like here a little more?

Most certainly!

When the car is approaching a corner that it doesn't want to keep BC enabled for it warns you a split second before the corner, but it only warns you via the drivers display without audio cues.

As I mentioned, the drivers display, although it's in your field of view, isn't something that the car likes you looking at when BC is engaged. Thus, warning that the car will not steer through the corner via the very display that it doesn't want you to look at seems dangerous to me.

I would like an audible cue that the system is disengaging and for it to be at a further distance to the corner. I think it should progressively get louder should the driver not grab the wheel.

---

Audible cues do exist when the system loses the road, I explained this further down in the post. When that happens you get a red alert, instead of yellow, and the system makes a very low bing bing noise. I think that noise should be much louder.

Coming from an Audi that literally scares the crap out of you when ACC needs attention it seems like Ford just barely notifies you.

Does that help explain it better?

 

[BadgerGreg]

Although I've been using intelligent cruise control (ICC), I have a love/hate relationship with it:

1. It often reads signs off the highway that are intended for an adjacent frontage road or local highway lanes.
2. For areas that have truck/bus speed limits (usually at least 10 mph below that of passenger vehicles), it reads those signs as legit and adjusts the speed.
3. As the OP says, it uses the friction brakes to adjust speed when the speed limit changes to a lower speed...even if only a 10 mph reduction. This is my biggest problem with ICC, as I'm driving along on the highway and the car rapidly decelerates to the new speed limit. No thank you...I'd rather it use gentle regenerative braking and take 10 seconds to reach the new speed. I'm just pissing off the drivers who are behind me.

However, I love how it adjusts speed in construction zones and resumes normal speed afterwards. I'm torn on whether to disengage ICC. If @Ford Motor Company could correct the issues above, I'd leave it on and be very happy with it.

 

[DevSecOps]

Although I've been using intelligent cruise control (ICC), I have a love/hate relationship with it:

As for #1 and #2, I must admit Ford isn't the only one with this problem. I've seen this happen with both VW and Audi's systems. Being that I've worked with Machine Learning for quite some time I understand the issues here as being hard to tackle. When something is hard to tackle you have to plan for that. I feel that Audi's approach is better in this regard. When my Audi detects, in error or correctly, a sign for lower speed it does 2 things, first it warns me about a mile in advance with an icon of someone taking their foot off of the pedal. This indicates that the system will be slowing down. It doesn't brake and it glides to the new speed. If it's a corner that it's slowing for it shows a squiggly curve in the road sign. Either way it alerts to the reason for the slowdown and does it gracefully. Ford on the other hand, doesn't alert to anything, you just look down when the car is braking and you see your set cruise speed is changed...

I prefer not to use ICC, and rather use ACC, for these reasons both in the Audi (which is disabled by putting it in sport mode) and in the Mach-E, which is a few toggle switches (once you have BC, ICC goes away completely as an option).

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