Over the weekend (April 15th) I was lucky enough to be part of the GlobalMustangDay celebrations. The event was held at the British Motor Museum in Warwick which is roughly 130 miles from my home. After tracking down one of the very rare BlueCruise capable vehicles we had (most were out on press events and demos) I managed to be convincing enough to secure it for the weekend; this was to be my longest EV trip to date with the opportunity to get to experience some real hours with our new BlueCruise feature in a real-life scenario outside of the testing we have been doing over the past few months.
I am not much of a morning person, especially on the weekend but looking out of the window at 5.45 am with the Mach-E glistening at me was enough to get me started for the day (that and lots of caffeine)
I live quite close to Junction 8 of the M11 which is in a Blue Zone so it didn’t take long before I could initiate BlueCruise. At this point I have a confession to make, I have had Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control (IACC) fitted to many of my vehicles over the past few years and although I will occasionally use it on a long trip it isn’t something that I personally consider as a ‘must have’ so was wondering if for me BlueCruise would be similar.
Having engaged IACC as intended the ‘Hands-Free’ icon appeared within seconds of being on the motorway, and the display turned that now familiar blue making it easy to know that BlueCruise was available. Whilst watching the road I released my hands from the wheel and off we went continuously all the way through to the M25. Testing the feature is very different from experiencing it in a real-world scenario, the advantages of this on a substantial drive became clear to me almost instantly. I realised my hang-up with IACC was due to the constant need to intervene – taking that element away (whilst always keeping eyes on the road) was a game changer. Within a few minutes I was instantly relaxed, and it brought a level of enjoyment to motorway driving. The main observations were that BlueCruise is not intrusive as long as the driver is paying attention as they should. it doesn’t interrupt you and very competently does the job in the way it was intended. There were some points in the trip where it wasn’t available as there was a period of heavy rain; the signalling that I should take back control was if anything reassuring as I preferred to be fully in control at those points. It also disengaged in the Holmesdale tunnel on the M25 which again is intended behaviour.
Arriving at The British Motor Museum at around 8.00 am I definitely felt less of the strain than I usually would after a 2 1/2-hour journey and was ready to start the day. There were 100’s of Mustangs there along with loyal owners, each car having its own story and personality. The vibe was laid back with live music, food trucks and interactive displays. The Mach-E being the EV relation held its place well in this established community. We had around 30 MY23 BlueCruise capable vehicles for demos on the day with customers and media able to test it out personally. The overwhelming response was great to see, there was a real buzz around and excitement to try it out and the vast majority were BlueCruise converts (within a few minutes at least) some more traditional drivers will maybe need more time but I think we managed to secretly convert some of those too.
For the petrol heads there was a surprise reveal of the Mustang Dark Horse which was a sight to behold!
It is early days for BlueCruise but we are immensely proud of what our team have achieved in launching the first level 2 hands off driver assistance technology at motorway speeds. BlueCruise is currently available on MY2023 vehicles although we are investigating opportunities to roll out to previous generations if we can (subject to hardware requirements)
Any questions please use the chat pages on this site or comment here.
5 Comments
