U.S. federal safety regulators have upgraded their investigation into Ford's hands-free advanced driver assistance system BlueCruise — a step required before issuing a recall.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Office of Defect Investigation An investigation has been launched. After the agency confirmed that Ford BlueCruise used the system included in Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles last April. Two casualties. In both cases, Mustang Mach E cars crash into stopped vehicles.
NHTSA released. Be careful this week. The investigation has been upgraded to an engineering analysis. This means that the agency evaluates the vehicle; A review of additional technical data and related crash and non-crash reports will dig deeper into BlueCruise and its potential limitations.
Approximately 129,222 Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles are equipped with BlueCruise; according to Discipline enforcement. Ford did not respond to a request for comment. (TechCrunch will update the article if that changes.)
The agency said its initial investigation found BlueCruise had limitations in “detecting stopped vehicles in certain circumstances.” Those limitations include the potential for the Ford vehicle to falsely detect stationary objects in the distance while driving at or above 62 miles per hour.
“Additionally, insufficient lighting may limit system performance when visibility is poor,” NHTSA said.
Ford BlueCruise debuted. In 2021, the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and some 2021 Mustang Mach-E models. adaptive cruise control; Hands-free function to combine lane centering and speed-sign recognition with cameras, Radar sensors and software are used. Competitors with BlueCruise GM's Super Cruise Both systems are hands-free, and a cabin camera monitors drivers to make sure their eyes are on the road.
These systems are considered rivals to Tesla Autopilot, which still require the driver's hands to be on the wheel. Autopilot and the upgraded Tesla Full Self-Driving software are still considered less restrictive than Ford BlueCruise, which only works on certain pre-mapped highways.
Last October, NHTSA also opened an investigation. to Tesla's “Full Self-Driving (Supervisor)” software after reporting four crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one where a pedestrian was killed. This investigation is ongoing.