Ford Blue Cruise, how does it compare?

[Moonpie21]

I haven't really got in to the whole autonomous driving thing, always viewed as not my bag. However I like adaptive cruise control, a fairly recent revelation on a hire car or two. I made sure my new car has it, yet to receive, but it comes with Nissans ProPilot Navilink.

Anyway looking at cars for my wife and she test drove the Ford Mustang Mach E with Blue Cruise and I have to say it was pretty impressive. A camera is there to make sure you are watching the road, but otherwise you can take your hands off the wheel, it maintains distance up to the speed limit and keeps in lane. I have to say for the days journey up the motorway I am convinced felt less tired at the end.

It did get confused a little and it's not perfect, but I thought pretty good. Having not experienced anything like this before, a Tesla or any other advanced? system. I wondered how it compared.

I must admit having had to do a few more motorway journeys recently I might become a bit of an autonomous convert for such journeys...

[malaccamax]

Interested in Blue Cruise, just a shame Ford don't make a car any more I'm interested in. Think its restricted to M25 and M40. Others will follow with eyes-on, hands-off autonomous cruise I'm sure. I like the idea. Adaptive cruise already makes motorway journeys much more relaxing.

[Deranged Rover]

If it is me just being an over-sensitive old luddite, please tell me, but am I alone in feeling genuinely worried that people are looking forward to a time when they can pay less attention than they do now to driving on a motorway?

[heisthegaffer]

My citroen C5 PHEV Air cross SUV has a basic version where it follows the road but after 10 seconds or so, it asks you to out yours hands on the wheel.

What's the point? Is it so you can have a stretch or open a sweet or something?

[malaccamax]

Deranged Rover said:

If it is me just being an over-sensitive old luddite, please tell me, but am I alone in feeling genuinely worried that people are looking forward to a time when they can pay less attention than they do now to driving on a motorway?

You don't pay less attention. You have to watch the road. But you feel less stressed and that's got to be a good thing. Also Blue Cruise watches to ensure you have your eyes on the road, and not looking at a phone.

[Baldchap]

Deranged Rover said:

If it is me just being an over-sensitive old luddite, please tell me, but am I alone in feeling genuinely worried that people are looking forward to a time when they can pay less attention than they do now to driving on a motorway?

Computers are better than most drivers. I look forward to a day when the majority of cars are NOT controlled by idiots who think a test at 17 and a lifetime of driving to a shockingly poor standard makes them an expert.

[Moonpie21]

malaccamax said:

Deranged Rover said:

If it is me just being an over-sensitive old luddite, please tell me, but am I alone in feeling genuinely worried that people are looking forward to a time when they can pay less attention than they do now to driving on a motorway?

You don't pay less attention. You have to watch the road. But you feel less stressed and that's got to be a good thing. Also Blue Cruise watches to ensure you have your eyes on the road, and not looking at a phone.

It genuinely does, I looked at my family in the rear view mirror for slightly too long and it let me know I needed to watch the road. It is something you should try on a busy motorway a couple of times before you write it off, the no hands thing does make a difference, less tension I guess.

I don't want to pay less attention, but actually on a motorway if everyone was playing by the same rules it would become safer taking the human factor out of it. For me the beauty of blue cruise is you genuinely do still have to pay attention you could just relax your body a little more which on a long motorway journey helps.

I was using it up and down the M3. I have since done some reading on the Nissan version pro Pilot with navilink and you still have to hold the wheel (rather than the camera watching your eyes) which is fine I just thought the blue cruise was a step above and genuinely can see the application on a motorway. It's a personal opinion, but I think monotonous high speed journeys are where complacency or acceptance of speed represent risks and stuff like blue cruise etc can help mitigate that.

[Baldchap]

If you paint fake eyes on your eyelids does it let you sleep?

[stubert_]

Our XC90 does a similar thing but its "hands on" rather than "Eyes on", its turns off if you leave your hands off too long. Only used it a few times as I prefer the Adaptive Cruise rather than the full self drive but both make the motorway journeys much less tiring. Its a bit heavy handed accelerating after a slower car has either moved or speeded up but its generally a good system.

Apparently you can buy devices to put on the wheel so you can tap away on your iPad whilst dominating the 3rd lane in your Tesla Model X and not get moaned at by the car or actually pay attention to whats going on around you on the way to that important meeting I am sure thats perfectly safe

[Grumps.]

Must admit I always thought adaptive cruise would be great but after using it for a couple of years, I just don’t bother as, because knob heads, dart into a gap in the hope of gaining one car length and the system just jams the brakes on to maintain the set distance.

[Chimaera98]

I still don’t trust the over-reliance on tech, for tech’s sake.

My Dad has a brand new Kuga, (150 miles on the clock) approaching a mini roundabout (perfectly safely), an anti collision warning flashes up on the dashboard, warning buzzer/vibrations through the car as if there was impending carnage. My Dad had already switched the auto braking off, otherwise it would likely have activated an emergency braking situation for no apparent reason. The car had got confused by something, markings in the road or a car a distance off in the opposite direction, we don’t know why it did it. It reacted in an unexpected way in a safe situation.

There is also a wonky road sign nearby from an adjacent road, and their cars flash up that speed limit on their displays, not the road they are on.

My concern is with hands off the wheel driving, is if you are sitting there and you have to retake the wheel in an emergency situation, how many milliseconds extra is it going to take for you to move your hands and grab the wheel than if you are already paying attention and have the wheel in your hands, ready to respond?

[malaccamax]

Chimaera98 said:

I still don’t trust the over-reliance on tech, for tech’s sake.

My Dad has a brand new Kuga, (150 miles on the clock) approaching a mini roundabout (perfectly safely), an anti collision warning flashes up on the dashboard, warning buzzer/vibrations through the car as if there was impending carnage. My Dad had already switched the auto braking off, otherwise it would likely have activated an emergency braking situation for no apparent reason. The car had got confused by something, markings in the road or a car a distance off in the opposite direction, we don’t know why it did it. It reacted in an unexpected way in a safe situation.

There is also a wonky road sign nearby from an adjacent road, and their cars flash up that speed limit on their displays, not the road they are on.

My concern is with hands off the wheel driving, is if you are sitting there and you have to retake the wheel in an emergency situation, how many milliseconds extra is it going to take for you to move your hands and grab the wheel than if you are already paying attention and have the wheel in your hands, ready to respond?

Same amount of milliseconds to switch foot from accelerator to brake probably! But the point is your car will already be braking because it will have picked up on slowing traffic, or whatever hazard. In motorway traffic, I'd much rather be in front of a car with all the latest automatic emergency braking tech, even with a distracted driver behind the wheel, than an older car.
This isn't autonomous tech so if it does do something you weren't expecting you can override easily. Majority of the time though, it works very well and of course it just gets better

[Deranged Rover]

Chimaera98 said:

I still don’t trust the over-reliance on tech, for tech’s sake.

My Dad has a brand new Kuga, (150 miles on the clock) approaching a mini roundabout (perfectly safely), an anti collision warning flashes up on the dashboard, warning buzzer/vibrations through the car as if there was impending carnage. My Dad had already switched the auto braking off, otherwise it would likely have activated an emergency braking situation for no apparent reason. The car had got confused by something, markings in the road or a car a distance off in the opposite direction, we don’t know why it did it. It reacted in an unexpected way in a safe situation.

There is also a wonky road sign nearby from an adjacent road, and their cars flash up that speed limit on their displays, not the road they are on.

My concern is with hands off the wheel driving, is if you are sitting there and you have to retake the wheel in an emergency situation, how many milliseconds extra is it going to take for you to move your hands and grab the wheel than if you are already paying attention and have the wheel in your hands, ready to respond?

Indeed. I've already told on here before of my experience on a German autobahn of a Ford Kuga slamming on the brakes for a non-incident that I had already realised was coming up and worked out that would not affect me in the slightest.

[eldar]

Deranged Rover said:

Indeed. I've already told on here before of my experience on a German autobahn of a Ford Kuga slamming on the brakes for a non-incident that I had already realised was coming up and worked out that would not affect me in the slightest.

Failed safe, then?

[GhiaInjection]

Chimaera98 said:

I still don’t trust the over-reliance on tech, for tech’s sake.

My Dad has a brand new Kuga, (150 miles on the clock) approaching a mini roundabout (perfectly safely), an anti collision warning flashes up on the dashboard, warning buzzer/vibrations through the car as if there was impending carnage. My Dad had already switched the auto braking off, otherwise it would likely have activated an emergency braking situation for no apparent reason. The car had got confused by something, markings in the road or a car a distance off in the opposite direction, we don’t know why it did it. It reacted in an unexpected way in a safe situation.

There is also a wonky road sign nearby from an adjacent road, and their cars flash up that speed limit on their displays, not the road they are on.

My concern is with hands off the wheel driving, is if you are sitting there and you have to retake the wheel in an emergency situation, how many milliseconds extra is it going to take for you to move your hands and grab the wheel than if you are already paying attention and have the wheel in your hands, ready to respond?

We've got a 2018 Fiesta and 2019 Focus which both have adaptive cruise and auto braking. I have to say they both work really well. I've had the odd false positive warning, but the warning is the first step, the system initially expects you to brake and pre-loads the brakes to maximise braking performance for you. It's only if you ignore the warnings and it believes there is still an obstacle, that it will step in.

I've never had a false positive braking event. But I've had a few false positive warnings. The most common is a car turning left in front, that will have gone by the time I get there. The other is a particular bend that had pedestrians walking on the pavement, that it thought I was about to mow down!

My wife recalls a time when the auto braking kicked in in the Fiesta and saved her when she was distracted by the Sat Nav and the car in front suddenly braked to turn without indication.

Adaptive cruise is great on both and makes motorway driving much more relaxing. The only observations I'd make is you need to pull over early to avoid braking during the overtake! In the Fiesta it leaves braking a bit late for me when approaching 50mph traffic at 70mph with the distance set to the smallest. The smallest gap is just the right size for a car to pull into in traffic, although there is nothing stopping you using the throttle to "Override" and close the gap temporarily! (The smallest gap isn't particularly conducive with encouraging drivers to pull over either - again, throttle Override can be employed!!)

I'll often adjust the gap to two or three in "moving traffic" on a motorway and/or the visibility is not great. It can be a bit disconcerting as the system is obviously checking distances and not looking at brake lights and so sometimes feels like its reacting late until you get use to it - hence why I will increase the distance occasionally.

TBH I was surprised that Ford was the first to get approval in the UK, with all the talk of Tesla, Mercedes, etc... But well done Ford !