BlueCruise 1.5 adds Automatic Lane Change to its hands-free highway driving technology.
Ford’s popular BlueCruise technology has made a big step in its latest update, adding automatic lane changes to hands-free highway driving. This means BlueCruise will initiate a lane change if the vehicle ahead is slower than the set speed or if a vehicle is following too closely in the passing lane. The latest version of BlueCruise – BlueCruise 1.5 – is debuting with the new 2025 Mustang Mach-E, with multiple options to activate including a one-time purchase. About 10 media members and content creators recently received a briefing on the update from Ford’s Model e and BlueCruise team members and had the opportunity to experience BlueCruise 1.5 on highways in the Detroit area for the first time. Excerpts of some of their reviews are below:
Raves
“Ford wants everyone to have this system and if you ask me, you should have it, especially if you do any driving in heavy highway traffic. It’s great for road trips on long stretches of highway but even better, get it for commuting in heavy stop-and-go traffic. That’s where it’s worth its weight in gold.” – A Girls Guide to Cars
“When the system performs a lane change, it’s remarkably smooth and seems to slide over as good as, if not even better than some human drivers.” – CarScoops
“I’m honestly impressed at how much it drove like a human especially with those lane changes. The speed’s about right. The timing to get from one lane to another is pitch perfect and the car gave me enough time to really decide if I didn’t want to change lanes.” – Anoraker (YouTube)
“In addition to the automatic lane-change feature, revisions to the user interface make it easier to identify when hands-free driving is available and provide the driver with more information about the system's behavior ...” – Car and Driver
“Ford's hands-free driving assistant is now on par with General Motors' Super Cruise.” – Edmunds
“It’s also designed to get out of the way of a vehicle approaching from behind at speed, an excellent ‘anti-left-lane hog’ feature, something more drivers should learn how to do themselves.” – The Globe and Mail
“BlueCruise is better than it’s ever been, and it’s clearly a more confident system that delivers far more hands-off driving time than earlier versions.” – MotorTrend
Rants
“The bad news (sort of…) is that older systems with BlueCruise 1.3 and earlier cannot be updated to 1.5 which because the new system uses different hardware.” – A Girls Guide to Cars
“… if I pay for the subscription because, yes it has one, you'll either pay a onetime $2,498 fee upfront when you buy the car or $495 for an annual subscription, or $49.99 per month.” – Anoraker (YouTube)