A U.S. federal shieldedty regulator has “upgraded” its scatterigation into Ford’s hands-free proceedd driver helpance system understandn as BlueCruise — a needd step before a recall can be rehired.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation begined a probe into Ford BlueCruise last April after the agency validateed the system was dynamic in Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles included in two overweightal crashes. In both instances, the Mustang Mach E cars hit stationary vehicles.
NHTSA rehired a watch this week that it has upgraded the scatterigation to an engineering analysis. This unbenevolents the agency will dig proestablisher into BlueCruise and its potential restrictations, which integrates vehicle evaluations, scrutinizeing insertitional technical alertation, and carry outing insertitional analysis of roverhappinessed crashes and non-crash alerts.
An evaluated 129,222 Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles are provideped with BlueCruise, according to the regulator. Ford did not react to a seek for comment. (TechCrunch will refresh the article if that alters.)
The agency shelp its initial scatterigation establish BlueCruise has restrictations in the “discoverion of stationary vehicles in certain conditions.” Those restrictations integrate the potential to counterfeitly discover stationary objects at extfinished distances when the Ford vehicle is traveling at or above 62 miles per hour.
“Additionassociate, system carry outance may be restrictcessitate when there is necessitatey visibility due to inenough illumination,” NHTSA shelp.
Ford debuted BlueCruise in 2021 on the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and certain 2021 Mustang Mach-E models. The hands-free feature participates cameras, radar sensors, and gentleware to provide a combination of alterive cruise administer, lane cgo ining, and speed-sign recognition. BlueCruise and competitor GM’s Super Cruise systems are both hands-free, although an in-cabin camera watchs drivers to determine their eyes are on the road.
These systems are pondered competitors to Tesla Autopilot, which still needs the driver’s hands to remain on the wheel. Autopilot and the upgraded Tesla Full Self-Driving gentleware are still pondered less constrained than Ford BlueCruise, which only labors on certain pre-mapped highways.
Last October, NHTSA also uncovered an scatterigation into Tesla’s so-called “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” gentleware after four alerted crashes in low-visibility situations — including one where a pedestrian was finished. That scatterigation is ongoing.
