Friday, April 19, 2024

Lincoln ActiveGlide Ford BlueCruise First Drive: Hands-Free Highs And Lows

lincoln blue cruise

After the 90-day trial, you can purchase a subscription for $75 monthly, $800 annually, or choose from other multi-year subscription plans. New buyers can opt to purchase the subscription with their initial vehicle purchase. As should go without saying — but which still needs to be pointed out, given the ongoing confusion about driver-assistance technologies — Lincoln ActiveGlide (or Ford BlueCruise) doesn't make a vehicle autonomous.

Confusion in the corners

Ford recently announced that BlueCruise 1.3 will arrive in the 2021 to 2023 Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles and then roll out. The upgraded system improved performance when driving around corners and stayed engaged five times longer than the BlueCruise 1.0 system. Although the BlueCruise feature is expanding, not every Lincoln model comes with it. For the 2024 model year, all Lincoln Navigator and Nautilus trim levels will be equipped with the hardware. Interestingly, the seven-seat Aviator will not be equipped with the safety feature. The latest version of Ford's BlueCruise highway self-driving suite is currently percolating through the company's lineup.

Lincoln Aviator Gets a Fresh Face and BlueCruise Hands-Free Driving Tech

Using Lincoln BlueCruise is as easy as activating adaptive cruise control once the initial setup is complete. You'll need to connect with the Lincoln Way® app to activate the subscription and connect to the system. Once the initial setup is complete and you are driving in a Blue Zone, press the Adaptive Cruise Control button on the steering wheel. If the system detects that the vehicle is on a compatible road and it is safe to do so, the Hands-Free indicator will activate on the digital information display behind the wheel.

Lincoln ActiveGlide (Ford BlueCruise) First Drive: Hands-Free Highs And Lows

Level up your driving experience with the advanced technology of Lincoln BlueCruise hands-free highway driving. Select new Lincoln Corsair and Lincoln Navigator models at Crest Lincoln come equipped with the newest version of Lincoln BlueCruise, allowing you to enjoy your next commute or road trip with a relaxed, hands-free experience on compatible roads. Contact our team to check the BlueCruise capabilities on our new Lincoln SUV models in Sterling Heights, MI. More surprising still was how well it worked when I approached congestion, with the Lincoln smoothly slowing to a halt and then automatically picking up again when the car in front moved. If your daily commute has you facing regular jams, this is undoubtedly a far nicer way of dealing with them. The interesting part of the system is that it’s only available to use in certain hands-free blue zones on highways across America.

About 97 percent of controlled highways (interstates, freeways, or expressways) in the United States and Canada are Blue Zones. Lincoln BlueCruise is available on new Lincoln Corsair and Lincoln Navigator models. You can check to see if your vehicle has an active BlueCruise subscription by checking your Lincoln Way® app.

Where that system requires you to keep your hands on the wheel, applying torque so that the car knows you're still supervising and prepared to take over, ActiveGlide Hands-Free uses an attention-monitoring camera instead. BlueCruise will automatically change lanes when the driver activates the turn signal and senses that it is safe to do so. Lane Change Assist helps mitigate potential hazards while changing lanes due to blind spots or driver error. I'm of the opinion that true autonomous vehicles are still quite some way out, and I'm not alone in that pessimism. These Level 2 assistance systems aren't so much precursors to driverless cars, as they are — when treated sensibly — limited ways to alleviate stress in certain situations and settings. Used appropriately, I've found they can definitely help there, though the key is communication between vehicle and driver as to who, exactly, is doing what at each moment in time.

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lincoln blue cruise

If you look away, whether that's to watch the scenery, play with the infotainment system, or anything else, the system will demand your attention back. Ignore the escalating series of beeps and visual warnings, and eventually, ActiveGlide will deactivate altogether. While the Lincoln Aviator hasn't changed a whole lot, its updated looks and BlueCruise technology could make its facelift a worthy upgrade for current Aviator owners looking to freshen up their ownership experience. While the second-generation Aviator is still a relatively new model, having first launched in 2020, its design was starting to age.

Ford BlueCruise launches in third European country - TESLARATI

Ford BlueCruise launches in third European country.

Posted: Tue, 10 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Ford’s BlueCruise is a hands-free highway driving technology that takes driver-assist a step further. The BlueCruise hardware allows the driver to operate the car on the highway while taking their hands completely off the wheel. BlueCruise is a subscription-based service, which you can activate through the Lincoln Way app.

What is Ford’s BlueCruise?

Lincoln BlueCruise takes your luxury vehicle experience to the next level with advanced driving assistance technology that reduces the stress of driving and the effects of driver fatigue. BlueCruise allows drivers to relax from their state of hyper-awareness and takes over many of the decisions faced during a typical driving session. Not only does it cruise safely by maintaining speed and safe distances between other vehicles, it can also change lanes safely and adjust to real-time driving situations.

Check out the convenient features of our new Lincoln luxury models at Crest Lincoln. Our team can show you all the exciting new technology that will elevate your daily driving experience and allow you to enjoy the feeling of sanctuary in our luxurious SUV models. Contact our sales team to schedule a test drive and experience Lincoln BlueCruise technology in person. We'll take you around our nearby Blue Zones and show you how easy your next commute around Detroit can be with BlueCruise hands-free highway driving.

These are controlled-access highways that allow drivers to operate a car sans hands. When the car is driven out of the zone, the system disengages and the driver must put their hands back on the wheel. Lincoln BlueCruise allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel and let the vehicle take over acceleration, braking, and steering in the lane on compatible roads. Drivers must keep their eyes on the road, and a driver-facing camera helps provide alerts and redirect driver attention to the road so they can take control of the vehicle when necessary. Standard on the 2022 Navigator Reserve and Black Label trims, Lincoln pitches ActiveGlide as a convenience feature, and it builds on the automaker's existing adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go, lane centering, and speed sign recognition.

ActiveCruise certainly has the underpinnings of just such a system, but I feel like Lincoln still has some work to do on making it a more collaborative co-pilot. It feels like Lincoln could safely flip those car and steering wheel graphics around, and make the latter much larger and easier to understand at a glance. I'd not argue with a broader range of beeps and tones to communicate system status, either, as there were moments where I was being called on to resume control but that wasn't immediately obvious.

BlueCruise will keep the vehicle centered in the lane and subtly reposition itself when other vehicles crowd the lane and get too close. The good news is that, for the most part, Ford and Lincoln could address a lot of this uncertainty with software updates. ActiveGlide and BlueCruise are part of the automaker's OTA-capable system, with the potential for upgrades, tweaks, and new features being added remotely. It's not something I've observed in my multiple experiences with Super Cruise, and it definitely undermines some of your trust — and your degree of relaxation — with ActiveGlide. Knowing you'll need to be involved in more aggressive turns is one thing, but the uncertainty means you're always second-guessing just how adept the system will be. It kept me on my toes and attentive, yes, but I'm not sure it was any more relaxing overall than simply driving myself would've been.

We've seen GM make use of its similar system, adding new Super Cruise features and massaging behaviors like lane-positioning. That's something else that ActiveGlide could do with having adjusted, as I realized when a car in the lane beside me swung wide because the beefy Navigator was uncomfortably close to the white lines. Hopefully Ford and Lincoln will also eventually use it to deliver things like automatic lane-changes, which Super Cruise and Autopilot can do, but BlueCruise and ActiveGlide currently cannot. BlueCruise also lacks some of the trailering features GM has incorporated into its latest suite. Of course, unlike Tesla, neither GM nor Ford has moved beyond the highway space to offer a true competitor to Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" package. BlueCruise mode is sophisticated enough to drive the vehicle safely and optimize performance by anticipating narrow lanes or curves and operating the vehicle in the most efficient way possible.

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