Ford BlueCruise review (US): great when it works, but far from faultless

Is it the future yet? Where’s my self-driving car?

Drive assist technology is nothing new, but what has been the rage of late is the push by manufacturers to include some level of autonomous driving in their vehicles. While the goalposts on full autonomy are constantly repositioned, other more practical iterations of this sort of tech is in use today, be it lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control or a combo of such systems that blend together to approximate autonomy. Ford’s BlueCruise is one such system bringing hands-free driving to American highways.

Between previous short and long demos, the pitch has always been how useful BlueCruise would be on a true-blue American road trip, so we decided to put this theory to the test and drive hundreds of miles to see how many we could do hands-free.

Give us the details!

Ford’s BlueCruise is a SAE level 2 drive assist that works in approved “blue zones” or highways deemed optimal for safe use of the system. When activated, it allows for hands-free operation of the vehicle at highway speeds - up to 80 mph - while you, the driver, keep an eye out. Though hands-free, you’re still in charge, in control and responsible for the actions made by the car. This is made possible by a number of cameras and sensors that monitor the speed and distance of the cars ahead of you, the lanes beside you and their markings. There’s also a camera array on the steering wheel tracking the driver’s eyes to make sure they’re paying attention/awake.

For our drive, we took a BlueCruise-equipped Lincoln Nautilus on a drive from New York to Charlottesville, VA and back that amounted to roughly 740-ish miles. Ford states that 97 per cent of highways in the US and Canada are Blue Zones, and it provides an interactive map on its website for drivers to see how much they’ll encounter on their journey. Plugging in our destination, the website stated that 71 per cent of our drive down could be done hands-free. Fuelled-up with gas and coffee, we set out to do our first seven-hour leg of the trip.

How does it fare on the open road?

As it is with grief, the first emotional stage of experiencing BlueCruise is denial. There’s an ample amount of distrust that comes with initiating the system for the first time. It works similarly to an average cruise control, just set your speed and have lane-centering activated, and it will prompt you that it’s ready to run hands-free when you’re in a Blue Zone. We waited until we were on one of the longer uninterrupted sections of the drive to activate it, though this meant handing over the reins while in New Jersey. It was harrowing.

Stage two: Anger! Having our hands hovering above the wheel and constantly scanning for New Jerseyans rocketing around the Lincoln was far from the relaxing assist it purported to be. This also exposed the biggest weakness of this system and indeed all autonomous drive assists - other people. You can be as vigilant as a hawk but BlueCruise will be slow to respond to anyone flying up the left lane or shooting across three lanes. These moments lead to be next stage, bargaining.

“Okay,” you say to yourself, “I’m more engaged than I thought I’d be.” And you make little deals with the vehicle in your head about the instance in which you choose to use BlueCruise and when you wouldn’t. For instance, it would be convenient to let the Nautilus handle the drudgery of traffic, but it’s very conservative when it comes to the stop-and-go flow, leaving gaps that drivers will exploit, so you take on this burden so long as it runs well in more ideal conditions.

Sounds like it only works well when things are perfect.

For the most part it does. When the surroundings are optimal, the BlueCruise-piloted car will sail forth comfortably, centered in its lane without ping-ponging back and forth between the lines, shifting solely to either side when passing vehicles get a little too close for comfort.

While it does its thing, you’re free to sit back comfortably, so long as you’re keeping your eyes on the road. Your hands may be free, but that doesn’t mean it's time to start checking out, looking at your phone and other ill-advised activities. BlueCruise won’t start bugging out every time you glance down at your navigation or rear-view mirrors, but it will chime in when it feels like you’ve taken too long. It also can’t tell if you’re looking away for safety reasons like trying to read another driver’s intentions as you switch lanes.

Speaking of, BlueCruise can do semi-automatic lane changing when commanded. We say “semi” because you the driver still need to initiate it. Give the stalk a tap, and the car will scan to make sure the way is clear before making a gentle but deft shift when it’s sure. Handy, though it does feel like a slight oversight that this system doesn’t take the initiative like rival software.

Other limitations present themselves, too, like when the highway ahead has a pronounced curve. In these moments, BlueCruise will gently request that you have your hands on the wheel for extra security. You can choose to be the guiding hand through the bends, but if you leave it to do so, the system - at least in the Nautilus we drove - cut a jerky path through the corner, like trying to draw a curve with an etch-a-sketch, managing only to make a series of steps.

Perhaps that’s stage four. Depression. Discovering the limitations as well as the boredom from sitting with your hands by your side, free to do little else but drum along on your knees to the music playing.

Acceptance is probably going through all of the above and realizing that BlueCruise is not for every scenario, though with a long enough drive, it takes some of the pressure off so long as it doesn’t add new ones depending on the situation. On the drive down, we likely did half of it hands-free, with the rest hands-on due to certain conditions or for moments where we felt like we needed to engage and wake ourselves up.

Sounds like a success. Anything happen on the ride back?

When it was time to head back to New York, we figured that was the end of the story, with the return journey more or less confirming what we already experienced. That was mostly the case until a bit past the halfway mark, BlueCruise started acting unpredictably.

There were certainly moments where the system suggested we drive or demanded we take back control, like at the end of a Blue Zone, and there were also small instances where the eye tracking couldn’t exactly follow our gaze. Usually that was a quick adjustment of our sitting position or removal of sunglasses, though these moments were non-issues.

It became an issue where after the usual message to look at the road, our BlueCruise copilot couldn’t recognize that we’d capitulated. A great deal of eye-widening and face-pulling did nothing to re-convince the Lincoln that we were indeed looking forward, and the Nautilus began its emergency procedure to an unresponsive driver.

That’s scary! What happens then?

In the event that a driver using BlueCruise is deemed unresponsive, the vehicle will run through a number of behaviors to get their attention. There is the first alert, an orange graphic on the driver info screen and a tone, which escalates to a red flashing graphic and a more persistent alert sound. If this persists without the driver responding, the car will pump the brakes twice, presumably to jolt awake a driver that might’ve nodded off. This will continue until the car deems the driver to be fully incapacitated and will slow the car down to a 5mph crawl.

The first time it happened, we let it get to a certain point for the sake of experiencing it, though still perplexed that it couldn’t track our eyes, and taking the wheel returned things to normal. Thinking it was a one-time glitch, we continued until it happened again, and this time, taking hold of the steering wheel didn’t immediately return control, even after a few shakes. It was at this point all the goodwill that the system had earned was burned, and we went right back to distrust, driving conventionally for the rest of the journey home.

Quite the experience. What’s the verdict then?

Ultimately, BlueCruise is a handy if imperfect drive assist, though its potential impact varies between customers. Ford’s data indicates that 77 per cent of BlueCruise users use it for trips under 20 minutes while 60 per cent use it for drives longer than an hour. These are figures that paint it as an everyday tool, but is it worth using for 10-minute bursts? How often are users taking several hour-long road trips? These are all things that need to be taken into account because BlueCruise isn’t an inherent feature of the car you purchase that you may or may not use, it’s a paid, subscription-based add-on. Outside of a brief trial period, purchasers of BlueCruise-enabled Fords will need to shell out $800 a year for the privilege, which would indeed prompt us to use it every ten minutes if that were the case.

There’s also the competition to judge BlueCruise against. A number of automakers have some sort of active drive assist like Tesla and Volvo, but the direct competitor to Ford’s BlueCruise is GM’s similarly-named Super Cruise. Found mostly in Cadillacs, Super Cruise offers similar functionality, with some features that might seem superior. Some Cadillacs, for example, can automatically change lanes without driver input, and will also reposition the car after the initial pass. Perhaps more critically, Super Cruise’s method of handling an unresponsive driver sounds safer, as it brings the car to a full halt, turns the hazard lights on, and auto-dials emergency services.

That’s not to say that Super Cruise is without it own faults or that Ford can’t implement those functions, and it too is a pricey additional option - $2,500 upfront and then $25 a month - but those are the current standings in the drive assist arms race.

Is BlueCruise handy? Yes. Will we miss it on our next big road trip? Sure. But it’s skittish functionality and added cost make it a hard thing to recommend for those who aren’t taking hours-long journeys in a regular basis.