2023-07-24 06:17:00
Ford BlueCruise: a new era of driver assistance in the UK
It is the first ‘level 2’ autonomous driving system approved in the UK. Ford’s BlueCruise 1.3 aims to reduce the number of times drivers need to intervene while the car is traveling on the highway. New Mustang Mach-E models will be the first to benefit from this, while older models will gain access to this technology through a remote software update later in the summer of 2023.
According to Ford, this version of Autopilot is three times better than 1.2, and five times better than 1.0 when it comes to driver input. Indeed, with the BlueCruise 1.3 version, when the blue warning light is activated, the driver has the right not to have his hands on the steering wheel provided he looks at the road at least once every 10 seconds. And to ensure that drivers remain a minimum vigilant, an infrared camera monitors their gaze, even through sunglasses. If the driver is distracted and admires the green landscape along the highway for more than five seconds, a chime prompts him to return his attention to the road. If this distraction is prolonged, the alert becomes more pressing. And after about 15 seconds of inattention, the car begins to brake gradually to encourage the driver to regain control.
Autonomous driving: better navigate curves and narrow lanes
Driving with “level 2” autonomy devices (“hands-free, eyes on the road”) is the maximum currently authorized by regulations in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the BlueCruise 1.3 can cover an impressive distance with a minimum of human intervention: from Dover, in the south of the United Kingdom, to Dundee, in Scotland, a distance of 880 km.
To date, 225,000 drivers have tried the different iterations of the BlueCruise, covering a total of 152.8 million km, Ford announced. In addition to the upgrade to Level 2 autonomy, the BlueCruise 1.3 is able to negotiate tighter turns and offers more precise positioning in narrow lanes. Of course, all this has something to excite us… while waiting for the approval of this system in France!
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