Ford BlueCruise OTA Rollout Delayed Until Q1 2022

[NewtruckinFL]

Ditto. Although my alerts are quite a bit more infrequent. More accurately should be called ”drunk driver mode” and not ready for general rollout

If it is asking for hands every 10 seconds it sounds like regular lane centering. The reviews I have seen from actual BlueCruise including ones on youtube seem to be relatively good, but obviously I haven't been able to confirm.

Has Ford come out with an official update on when the software is going to be delivered yet? If so I haven't seen it. I think we are all relying upon what the CEO said during an earnings call and on an internet article saying it will be first quarter of 2022.

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[Pioneer74]

Have been playing with Bluecruise for the last couple of days, and it still needs work. Drifts to the centerline, corrects quickly (making me worried that other drivers would think I’m intoxicated) and cannot handle turning lanes. It also requires some form of steering input every 5-10 seconds or you get an alert

it maybe the newest thing, but it isn’t there yet

That's not BlueCruise. That's not even Lane Centering. If you're taking about turning lanes you probably don't even have cruise control on.

 

[GeorgeK]

I just bought a 2021 F150 platinum power boost yesterday. The truck was delivered to the dealership last Saturday. It has the 360 active prep kit, but how do I know if it has blue cruise pre installed on it?

It should be in you setting where you find the cruise control settings and you have to activate it and you’ll get a confirmation message through FordPass

 

[GeorgeK]

That's not BlueCruise. That's not even Lane Centering. If you're taking about turning lanes you probably don't even have cruise control on.

The dash will light up all blue when it’s activated and it will say hands free

 

[dew.man]

No offense, but having a bunch of people that don't even have it enabled yet chiming in and telling us what it does and doesn't do is starting to get old.

Here's what Blues Clues looks like on my truck:

And here's regular adaptive cruise with lane centering on my truck when hands-off mode unexpectedly cut out a half-mile later:

And here it is again on a different stretch of road and with "driver assistance" selected in the console:

Back to the point I was trying to make before - even in complete hands-off/blue cruise mode, I often find the truck falling in and back out of this mode. I've had miles of highway where it's perfectly fine, and other stretches of pristine freeway where it goes in and out every half-mile for several miles at a time. I've also had it pop up with other warnings (did not capture on camera) where it unexpectedly tells me to take control of the vehicle.

The inconsistency of where blue cruise is or is not available, is in of itself a problem, but the much more concerning issue (at least to me), is the inconsistency of the lane centering mode. While it seems to be generally very reliable, I have had several instances where it has trouble keeping me in my lane and bounces back and forth between the lane markings like a drunk driver. This has happened to me on at least 2 separate occasions last week.

Bottom line, is that I am a huge fan of Ford (and specifically the gen 14 F150); and I applaud them for the technological direction and effort, but the "hands-off" driving mode is not quite ready for full blown rollout. I'm confident that Ford will fix this and it'll be a great feature some time soon, but in the meantime and in it's current form, I could see blue cruise causing accidents and generating a ton of liability for Ford. I think (or at least hope) that Ford is aware of these issues, is working on a software update and that is the reason they are taking their time rolling this out to the masses.

</rant>

 

[gtotco]

No offense, but having a bunch of people that don't even have it enabled yet chiming in and telling us what it does and doesn't do is starting to get old.

Here's what Blues Clues looks like on my truck:

And here's regular adaptive cruise with lane centering on my truck when hands-off mode unexpectedly cut out a half-mile later:

And here it is again on a different stretch of road and with "driver assistance" selected in the console:

Back to the point I was trying to make before - even in complete hands-off/blue cruise mode, I often find the truck falling in and back out of this mode. I've had miles of highway where it's perfectly fine, and other stretches of pristine freeway where it goes in and out every half-mile for several miles at a time. I've also had it pop up with other warnings (did not capture on camera) where it unexpectedly tells me to take control of the vehicle.

The inconsistency of where blue cruise is or is not available, is in of itself a problem, but the much more concerning issue (at least to me), is the inconsistency of the lane centering mode. While it seems to be generally very reliable, I have had several instances where it has trouble keeping me in my lane and bounces back and forth between the lane markings like a drunk driver. This has happened to me on at least 2 separate occasions last week.

Bottom line, is that I am a huge fan of Ford (and specifically the gen 14 F150); and I applaud them for the technological direction and effort, but the "hands-off" driving mode is not quite ready for full blown rollout. I'm confident that Ford will fix this and it'll be a great feature some time soon, but in the meantime and in it's current form, I could see blue cruise causing accidents and generating a ton of liability for Ford. I think (or at least hope) that Ford is aware of these issues, is working on a software update and that is the reason they are taking their time rolling this out to the masses.

</rant>

My suspicion is Ford is aware, and this is why general rollout continues to be delayed. TBH if this is the case (and was always a bit of how I interpreted the earnings call statements) it’s probably the right call. IMHO the wrong call was probably starting to ship software that isn’t fully baked on new vehicles, though at least they are limiting the population. Again pure speculation, but generally speaking I think automakers should take this stuff slow and get it right.

 

[RedTXV]

I picked up my Limited last Thursday that has BC. I had honestly forgotten about it until I turned on CC on a somewhat newer highway (toll road) here in Houston. BC activated and used it for a few miles. It seemed to go in and out but overall was pretty cool.

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time on Interstate 45 and not once did it activate. I then hit the same stretch of toll road that it worked on days before and it again did not activate. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[dew.man]

I picked up my Limited last Thursday that has BC. I had honestly forgotten about it until I turned on CC on a somewhat newer highway (toll road) here in Houston. BC activated and used it for a few miles. It seemed to go in and out but overall was pretty cool.

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time on Interstate 45 and not once did it activate. I then hit the same stretch of toll road that it worked on days before and it again did not activate. Am I doing something wrong?

I don't think you're doing anything wrong - Ford's just still working the kinks out of the system. Welcome to the "guinea pig" club

That said, I think it's going to be a very cools system once they start pushing updates...

 

[NewtruckinFL]

I love my Gen14 F150 Limited. However, I would constructively encourage Ford to communicate what is causing the over the air delay so we don't have to speculate.

 

[MadHatter0101]

I love how Ford removed Blue Cruise from my login page on my truck. For me its still dishonest. I expected to have it by now and I bought mine in March. By the time I get it, it will be a year old and that's 1 year I could of used it. I sure hope they through in a free year at least. (I was told June it will be out).

Its also not fair that new customers have it, but us who have waited are screwed. If its hardware changes then Ford needs to step up and replace it. I don't think its OTA updates, I work in IT and pushing updates is not that big of a deal. Its so easy to stagger and AT&T has plenty of bandwidth. Lets say that was the issue. I am sure people can do the USB or go in for this 1 big update. I would be there in 5 mins to get Blue Cruise working.

 

[RedTXV]

I don't think you're doing anything wrong - Ford's just still working the kinks out of the system. Welcome to the "guinea pig" club

That said, I think it's going to be a very cools system once they start pushing updates...

I can understand this. But it doesn't make sense that it didn't work on a stretch of highway that it worked on two days before. Or are others experiencing that as well?

 

[RyanStroeder]

I love how Ford removed Blue Cruise from my login page on my truck. For me its still dishonest. I expected to have it by now and I bought mine in March. By the time I get it, it will be a year old and that's 1 year I could of used it. I sure hope they through in a free year at least. (I was told June it will be out).

Its also not fair that new customers have it, but us who have waited are screwed. If its hardware changes then Ford needs to step up and replace it. I don't think its OTA updates, I work in IT and pushing updates is not that big of a deal. Its so easy to stagger and AT&T has plenty of bandwidth. Lets say that was the issue. I am sure people can do the USB or go in for this 1 big update. I would be there in 5 mins to get Blue Cruise working.

Yeah you nailed it. Something else is going on and Ford is sucking ass at communicating honestly.

 

[dew.man]

I can understand this. But it doesn't make sense that it didn't work on a stretch of highway that it worked on two days before. Or are others experiencing that as well?

Yes, it does the same thing for me. Same stretch of road - works one minute but not the next.

There's a particular 2-3 mile stretch that sometimes it works flawlessly, while other times it does not want to come on at all, yet other is cuts in and out.

One thing I noticed that I thought interesting is, on that same stretch of road, when it does not want to go into BC on it's own, sometimes if I just hit cancel and then resume again immediately, it will go in to BC. YMMV

 

[djdj1000]

That's not BlueCruise. That's not even Lane Centering. If you're taking about turning lanes you probably don't even have cruise control on.

I have only been able to activate BlueCruise when cruise control is on and don't know if there is another way to do it.

My experience with the turning lane was to have the truck make a rather sharp and unexpected change of direction into a turning lane. The system was probably following the solid righthand stripe, with a delayed awareness of its change of relationship to the vehicle and did not have the ability to self-deactivate when there were changes to the striping pattern on the road. Fortunately, due to the frequent alerts telling me to have my hands on the wheel, I was able to correct back to my intended lane, and the instrument display subsequently flashed an alert notifying me that it had cancelled that action.

BlueCruise is looking like more of an assisted highway cruise control functionality and does not have a self driving functionality like Auto Pilot.

 

[djdj1000]

Are you sure you're using Bluecruise? Does your dash say "Hands free" when you're using it? I used it quite a bit on i-80 and definitely don't get an alert every 5-10 seconds.

Yes, was using BlueCruise and did say hands free. Perhaps it is because I was driving on a country highway rather than an interstate? Will give it another try on an interstate next week.

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