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Dear Ford, you've lost your mind

neririn

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I received notice today that my Blue Cruise trial was ending 12/31/23 and I have been invited to renew now to avoid any interruptions. I clicked on the link to see what they wanted to charge for it and to see if by any chance the 'interruptions' they claimed I could avoid are all the things that currently are broken with it and cause significant interruptions with every use.

So, it appears they want $80 per month for Blue Cruise. NOT A CHANCE. I mean if it was anything more than glorified adaptive cruise control, MAYBE I would consider paying for the 'service'. If it could park itself without me there, or it could change lanes, or even better if it could come get me after the baseball game so I didn't have to walk to the far parking lot, I'd likely be interested.

But for what it actually can 'do' and based on my hands ON experience with the supposedly hands OFF BlueCruise, I don't know what they are thinking they are providing with this service nor why they think it justifies additional cost.

In watching this forum, I knew it wouldn't be long before they wanted more money, so I have logged my last several BlueCruise drives home from the office. It is a 6.5 mile drive, on a flat, mostly straight highway. Not ONE drive was flawless, not one was any better than Adaptive cruise control with lane keeping assist.

Most recently in the span of 6.5 miles BlueCruise asked me to resume control 19 times. Canceled an additional 2 times. In 6.5 miles. BlueCruise could not even drive straight, by itself, for a consistent half mile. On that drive BlueCruise successfully navigated one gentle curve to the right at highway speeds, but began to 'ping pong' back and forth in the lane when trying to straighten back out, resulting in the "resume control' alarm. It asked me to resume control in the middle of any other vehicle movement that would require more than 2-3 degrees of gradual wheel turn.

Now remember, this is highway driving, no stoplights, 6.5 miles in the same lane, clear weather, full sunlight, moderate traffic. You know, the same simple, straightforward driving millions of people have been using their right foot and their left knee to control for the past 60 years so they can eat breakfast or do their makeup on the way into work.

Based on my logs, BlueCruise has successfully 'driven' my truck less than 30% of the time BlueCruise was enabled. And they want $80 a month. $80 is more than double what I pay to POWER my truck for a month. And the power utility successfully powers my truck 100% of the time. Ford is NUTS.

@Ford Motor Company in case you missed it, because you miss a lot lately, let me be clear. BLUECRUISE BARELY WORKS AT ALL AND IS NOT CURRENTLY WORTH PAYING ANYTHING EXTRA FOR. There wont be anything for me to miss come January 1, 2024. Actually, it will be better because my truck wont continue to lie to me and tell me BlueCruise is available for my drive.

I'd love to see the adoption numbers, but I am sure they will be so bad that they wont ever be posted publicly.
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TaxmanHog

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Interstate or rural state Highway?
Was there any on/off ramps in the vicinity of disengagement of hands free mode?
 
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neririn

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Interstate or rural state Highway?
Was there any on/off ramps in the vicinity of disengagement of hands free mode?
Interstate/Freeway driving. It is 6+ lanes in my direction, and actually goes to 8 for about half of the drive. For the logs, I was in the Express/Commuter lane to the far left for the whole monitored drive. Turned BlueCruise on once I got in the lane, turned off before exiting. So while there are off-ramps along the way, BlueCruise should have been under no delusions that I wanted to use them.

What is interesting is there are a couple locations where BlueCruise turns off within the same 200' stretch if I am driving in my Lightning or my Mach-E. And this I actually expect from time to time. Maybe there is a patch of particularly uneven road, poor contrast on the lane markings etc. But to charge $80 for a service that is far more garbage than good, let alone great... They are up in the night.
 

Whammy Bar

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Oh, its still going to ask you if you want to use Bluecrap... its just going to then open something in the Fordpass app on your phone asking you for payment.... or, well, it would, If their software team could implement it. So, you're probably right.
 

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heelyeah

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This must have been for your Mach E? The Lightning had a 3 year "free trial." So the earliest it could expire for the Lightning would be mid 2025 based on earliest deliveries for the Lightning in 2022. I took delivery July 2022 and my Bluecruise expires July 2025 per my Ford.com Dashboard.

But no way I will pay $80/month for it when the time comes.
 
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neririn

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This must have been for your Mach E? The Lightning had a 3 year "free trial."
Correct. My model year 21 Mach-E had the same trial which expires this year, despite BlueCruise not coming to my Mach-E until spring of 2022. Unfortunately Ford wasn't able to produce a usable product for a reasonable price in that 3 years. I am not holding my breath that they will by 2025 either.
 

TaxmanHog

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I was in the Express/Commuter lane to the far left for the whole monitored drive. Turned BlueCruise on once I got in the lane, turned off before exiting. So while there are off-ramps along the way, BlueCruise should have been under no delusions that I wanted to use them.
OK, my thought was you were in the right most lane where the demarcations between the peel off from the slow lane to ramp disappears, my hands free loses its confidence in sectors along I-95 & I-495 of Mass and disengages!!

OTOH, RI has been putting down hash marks along I-95 I've noticed that Hands Free remains active.

BTW, you can turn off the Blue Cruise reminder in settings.
 

PreservedSwine

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Amen.
I recall this trend started several years ago with several premium manufacturers (BMW or Lexus or MercedesIIRC). They wanted a subscription service fora platitude of features- from cruise control to heated seats, and everything in between.
At the time, I remember praying that the US auto market would stand tall and scoff. But it seems the actuaries at Ford have feel otherwise. Hold the line- if this damn bursts there’s no plugging it.
 

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mattskr

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Hmm...I don't commute but when I've used it recently it has been fantastic. I've driven from Austin to Dallas, Austin to Houston and the truck mostly drove itself. Definitely not disengaging nearly as much as you've described.

The only time it really disconnects is lanes merging or dividing, construction area it doesn't know about, and for some reason through every toll-booth.

There was an update that addressed the ping-pong. I'm wondering if a lack of that update is causing all of your problems? Mine does not ping-pong in the lane.

I agree $80 a month or $800/year is absurd. The point of the subscription is so that they can improve the service and as far as I can tell not a single road has been added in my area since I got the truck almost a year ago.
 

djstough

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I'm awaiting 1.3 on the Lightning. I've got it on the MachE, and it works well. But that trial expires this month. How long until I see it on the truck? LOL
 

Pitbull2o08

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Remember when the bluecruise maps wasn't going to expire for 100 years? How do we access that date again on the new sync?
 

COrocket

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Ford wants to charge Tesla software prices without having Tesla level software development (and even the Tesla software, while better IMO, is a bit limited in its current form for what they want to charge).

I can’t see people shelling out thousands of dollars in vehicle software until it can drive itself from point A to point B while you sleep or go get your kids at soccer practice. Then this autonomous driving stuff will actually be a practical time saver. In its current form you are basically paying the privilege to babysit your truck on the highway when it gets confused or disengages
 

TaxmanHog

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Ford F-150 Lightning Dear Ford, you've lost your mind 1701470644144
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