Ford revamps BlueCruise hands-free driving access, including free trial for new EV owners

As Ford Motor Company continues to expand the number of branded vehicles equipped with its BlueCruise hands-free driving technology, it is now making the feature more accessible to drivers by offering more flexible subscription plans as well as a free trial for new customers.

The public got its first taste of Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving technology when the American automaker first announced it in the spring of 2021, debuting on the Mustang Mach-E. The F-150 Lightning would be the next EV to adopt the ADAS feature via an over-the-air (OTA) update, which was then followed by an upgraded version 1.2 that included hands-free lane change capabilities.

Since then, the system has delivered 100 million hands-free miles to Ford and Lincoln drivers, earned a blue ribbon in driver assistance from Consumer Reports, and been equipped on 225,000 Ford vehicles around the globe.

With plans for another 500,000 model year 2024 vehicles to be equipped with the necessary hardware in North America alone, Ford is making availability of the hands-free driving features easier and more flexible – whether you sign up the day of your EV purchase or a year or two later.

Ford changes hands-free subscription model to annually or monthly

In addition to including BlueCruise hardware as a standard on its factory vehicles, Ford is giving customers the freedom to activate access to the driver assistance technology whenever they choose, whether it’s at the time of purchase or years down the road.

This more flexible model also gives Ford and Lincoln customers the option to subscribe to BlueCruise on a monthly or annual basis, with no minimum length commitment required. Ford points out that a customer can add hands-free driving for a single month ahead of a long road trip and have the freedom to not activate it again for years if they so choose. Ford Model e’s head of commercial acceleration, Ashley Lambrix, spoke:

BlueCruise is an experience-it-to-believe-it technology, and people are amazed at how BlueCruise can help make driving less stressful and more enjoyable – especially in traffic or on long drives. We believe in this technology and how it can help transform the highway driving experience and want to give more customers the opportunity to try it and provide flexibility for them to activate it when they want to use it.

In addition to the flexible subscription plans, Ford is now offering a free 90-day BlueCruise trial to all customers who purchase a 2024 Mustang Mach-E or F-150 Lightning. Ford points out that the hands-free feature will be available to purchase as a three-year package for $2,100 at the point of sale.

If a customer chooses to wait, they will receive the aforementioned 90-day trial and can decide to activate an annual hands-free driving plan for $800 or a $75 subscription per month. Again, BlueCruise can be activated or deactivated at any point during the vehicle ownership period.

Looking ahead, Ford says it will roll out BlueCruise 1.3 soon, beginning with Mustang Mach-E units from model year 2021-2023, and promises to “make hands-free highway driving even better.”