6 days ago
Hands-Off Review: Ford BlueCruise 1.5 Is an Even Better Hands-Free Driving System
Ford's BlueCruise first launched in 2021 as the Blue Oval's response to GM's Super Cruise and Tesla's Full Self Driving hands-free driver assistance systems. Initially available on the Mustang Mach-E and Ford F-150, it quickly established itself as our second favorite in the group, trailing only Super Cruise due to more limited areas of operation and its lack of a couple of notable features.
Ford's BlueCruise 1.5 now offers automated lane changes, enhancing its hands-free driving capabilities. It communicates clearly with drivers and has improved lane-centering and curve handling. Available on pre-mapped roads, it offers various subscription options after a 90-day trial.
This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article Read Next
While we of course love driving, like everyone else we hate long highway slogs, jammed-up commutes, and the fatigue that comes after long hours in the saddle. Level 2 hands-free systems help in all these cases, taking over minutiae such as lane-placement, road following, gap maintenance, and speed regulation, leaving drivers to solely scan the road ahead for dangers.
Now, BlueCruise version 1.5 is rolling out and brings with it one huge addition to its feature set: automated lane changes. The new ability—which Super Cruise has offered for a few years—builds on BlueCruise 1.2's addition of assisted lane changes whereby the car could execute hands-off lane changes but required the driver to tap the turn-signal stalk to initiate them. Now your Ford will do it for you.
Is this enough to put it on par with Super Cruise, a MotorTrend 2025 Best Tech winner in the category? We took a lightly refreshed 2025 Mach-E for a quick spin in Detroit to get an idea.
From a base in downtown Detroit, we hit I-96 and headed for the city's suburbs and back, immediately activating BlueCruise by tapping a large button on the left steering wheel spoke. We set our speed to 75 mph, above the 70-mph limit, and took our place in the medium-density traffic.
Of course, this being Detroit, 75 mph wasn't near quick enough, and we were soon the one being passed. BlueCruise will now move you out of the way of traffic approaching from the rear, and it did so twice for us, quickly enough that it didn't appear the approaching cars needed to slow down.
To get our own passes in, we toggled our speed up to 80 and went hunting for people to pick off. When you approach a slower car, BlueCruise largely starts initiating a lane change at roughly the same time any human driver might; in fact, it beat us to the punch a couple of times, activating a lane change and turning on the signals itself just as we were about to tap the stalk to force it to move us over. Once a pass is executed, BlueCruise will look for a gap and slide back to your original lane.
If traffic is flowing at roughly the same speeds—say, within 5 mph—BlueCruise acts confidently and decisively, even in smaller gaps, just as you would. With higher speed differentials, it behaves with more caution, which we appreciate.
We figure this comes as a direct result of hardware and software changes that Ford says resulted in faster processing and more memory. We asked what those changes were, or at least for some quantification of how large the improvements were, but Ford wouldn't provide further detail.
Another new feature of BlueCruise is clearer communication of what it's doing and why. For example, it will tell you it's moving out of the passing lane—it hates left-lane squatters as much as we do—when the lane to the right is clear. And it does so early enough that you can override its decision and cancel a lane change by either tapping the turn signal stalk the opposite direction of the intended change or simply grabbing the steering wheel and maintaining the lane yourself. These communications keep you aware of what's happening when and why, and we hope all automakers adopt similarly clear language for their systems.
We also noticed the enhancements and refinements made for BlueCruise versions 1.3 and 1.4, namely better curve holding and more precise lane-centering, and that the car will scooch over a touch to avoid being too close to vehicles in adjacent lanes. 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.
Things BlueCruise won't do: pass on the right, move you more than one lane over at a time automatically, or nag you the moment you divert your eyes from the road ahead. Like Super Cruise, Ford's system allows you enough time to do basic tasks like change the radio station, adjust the climate control, glance out a side window, or reach for your sunglasses before it gently notifies you to look forward. It's a tacit acknowledgement that a human (with human needs) is in control, and Ford indeed says it designed the system to both behave like a real driver and work collaboratively with the person behind the wheel.
The bad? Like GM Super Cruise, Ford BlueCruise works only on pre-mapped roads, and in this case it's just 130,000 miles in North America; GM is up to roughly 750,000 miles of operable roadway. (Tesla's system theoretically has them both handily beat, as it can operate anywhere at any time, including city streets. We're just not so sure it's a good idea to hand 'Full Self Driving' the wheel.) That's about it for negatives until we get more time in the seat—especially in a back-to-back evaluation with Super Cruise.
BlueCruise-equipped models include a 90-day trial. After that, you can opt for a subscription at $49 per month, an annual plan for $495, or to purchase the system for the life of the vehicle for $2,495. That's not chump change, but BlueCruise 1.5's improvements and Ford's constant refinements could certainly justify it for anyone who spends a lot of time on the freeway.
