Paying for BlueCruise

[4sallypat]

After my 3 years that I paid for is up, I will be trading her in for a '25 or '26.

Can't wait for ventilated seats where I live and need cooling seats 300 days a year....

Forget the heat pump....

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[Jayg84]

Just got my mme 3 weeks ago and love blue cruise. I drive 50+ miles a day on the interstate. Luckily I have 3 years of free service, not sure what I would be willing to pay monthly but it's definitely less then what they are currently trying to charge.

 

[kentkt]

Just updated Fordpass to 5.7 and noticed a notification encouraging me to renew Bluecruise hands free for $0 for one year. PLEASE NOTE! I own a 2021 job 2 with NO 1.3 and my subscription expired earlier this month. MAYBE FARLEY IS LISTENING.

 

[byoungblood]

What do you mean by "use what you have"? What do you have that you lose? You can still do hands-on lane centering, you just lose hands-free. You can't keep using hands-free "what you have" for a service that relies on mapped highways. Highways change and while the mapping won't cause you to drive off the road or anything as it doesn't use them in that way, if there are lane shifts or other issues then the system would stop working without accurate mapping.

You are paying for the maintenance of that mapping, and without it they don't allow hands-free.

So it doesn't make sense to say "use what you have" when you're talking about a live service from the start. Ford never advertised BC as something that didn't rely on live mapping, they have done so from the beginning.

If you lose BC you can still use hands-on lane centering and adaptive cruise control, which some people incorrectly call BlueCruise. So let's be sure we are clear on that and you aren't losing that functionality that doesn't rely on mapping.

I don't think the mapping has as much of an effect on hands free as some of you think it does.

Now granted, this is just my observation on how the system works in my vehicle, so take it with a grain of salt.

As far as I can tell, the maps for hands free are primarily a geofence. They are areas where Ford have done some additional verification of lane markings, etc., and meets the criteria for hands-free. Think about it for a moment, BC is nothing but the hands on lane centering with some back end data to ensure that the car doesn't careen off the road or into another lane without giving the driver time to react.

However, we do know that the hands free mode still heavily relies on the forward facing camera to work properly. If the car is facing into the sun, it usually doesn't work well. If pavement markings are obscured or irregular, it disengages. However, I have noted that even in hands free mode it will occasionally follow an errant pavement marking.

But, the larger point is, there's not much to suggest that mapping updates are REQUIRED for the hands-free mode to work properly. If something materially changes, the system will disengage and fall back to hands on mode. And I'm OK with that.

Outside of regurgitating marketing materials, I would really like to see someone come up with something substantive on what is so critical about keeping the maps updated. Outside of that, I'm going to call it what it is, a money grab by Ford. They're dipping into the whole "feature as a subscription" BS that has become too pervasive in the industry.

 

[tfun]

Maybe don't charge us if we opt out of upgrades. Option to upgrade features separately

 

[Pipcecil]

TBH everything is a paid subscription service today. Easy example is a gaming system like the PS5. You have all the hardware to play with friends online but you must pay a monthly service to actually do it. Many find value to buy, some don't (like me). While I am not using the "full feature" of the console, I can still play games.

As for the price, they are actually quite competitive to other cars for this advanced level 2 automation. Level 2 can be as simple as the free version and as "advanced" as Tesla's full self driving. Nothing today is level 3. Tesla charges $99 a month for their FSD feature. It used to be $10,000 at car purchase (for life). That's pretty steep IMO.

The most advanced level 2 that was free was on the Ioniq 5. More limited places than blue cruise, and features half way between our free version and blue cruise. Tesla has the most "advanced" but it is so very very very buggy that I had to turn it off when I got a free trial of it. The issues with blue cruise bugginess is so minor compared to the massive problems with Tesla's system.

As for the price, Ford is trying to be competitive while also recouping cost and getting a profit. Additionally, beyond maintenance, the cost covers previous and future R&D. BC 1.5 is supposed to add auto lane change, i.e. the car makes the choice to change lanes for you, you don't have to initialize it.

BUT, for those owners that are capped at a lower BC version, I believe they should receive a discount (or free?). You are paying the same price as others for less features. The ioniq 5 and Tesla (really only other advance level 2 I have seen/driven) have the same version across all vehicles of all years (too a certain point hardware-wise) and are all updated at the same time.

$80 a month was a huge no for me. $45? Maybe. That's hitting closer to netflix pricing! Since I don't travel that much, it may be a situational purchase. Buy for the trip and keep for one month and then let lapse until the next trip. But I do enjoy it driving to work. It definitely cuts out on fatigue from long driving. Plus I can drink my coffee in peace while in the car instead of trying to drive!

 

[markboris]

Just updated Fordpass to 5.7 and noticed a notification encouraging me to renew Bluecruise hands free for $0 for one year. PLEASE NOTE! I own a 2021 job 2 with NO 1.3 and my subscription expired earlier this month. MAYBE FARLEY IS LISTENING.

I got the same notification to renew for one year for $0. So I did and got the email today stating my "purchase" was complete even though I did not pay anything. Thing is, I rarely use Blue Cruise but I thought, why not take advantage of this.

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