This morning, a new press release and video (above) appeared on Ford's official Media Center entitled, "FORD’S ‘MOTHER OF ALL ROAD TRIPS’ TESTS BLUECRUISE HANDS-FREE DRIVING AHEAD OF OVER-THE-AIR PUSH TO F-150, MUSTANG MACH-E."

The video was also shared on Twitter by Ford's CEO Jim Farley. He teased Tesla and its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Beta technology with the following comment. "BlueCruise! We tested it in the real world, so our customers don’t have to."

 

Who is Ford's mother of all road trips?

Well, it's actually not anyone's mom. Instead, it's the road trip itself that's the mother. Hopefully, others who read Ford's title will understand that, but we're willing to admit that it wasn't quite clear to us at first. We thought maybe some professional female test driver did the testing.

At any rate, the mother of all road trips was a real-world test that took place over 62 days with 10 Ford vehicles equipped with BlueCruise. The trip covered 110,000-miles in 37 US states and 5 Canadian provinces. Ford says BlueCruise already underwent some 500,000 miles of "development testing and fine-tuning."

What's BlueCruise?

According to Ford, BlueCruise will be available later this year on the 2021 F-150 and 2021 Mustang Mach-E electric crossover. It will come via an over-the-air software update, but only to F-150 and Mach-E vehicles "equipped with the available Ford Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0 Prep Package." Ford says:

"BlueCruise will give drivers the comfort and confidence of hands-free driving on prequalified sections of divided highways called Hands-Free Blue Zones that make up more than 100,000 miles of North American roads."

Follow the Ford source link below to read the entire press release.