Ford’s BlueCruise Hands-Free Driving Technology Under Investigation

(CTN News) – Earlier this week, the BlueCruise National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it had launched a preliminary investigation into Ford Motor Co.’s hands-free driving technology BlueCruise following two incidents in which Mustang Mach-E cars collided with stationary vehicles after a crash test.

As a result, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) started an evaluation of BlueCruise, which would provide partial driving automation, with the expectation that the driver would actively supervise the system’s performance.

Currently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is reporting that both collisions take place during “nighttime lighting conditions”, and at least one of the collisions results in a death according to the NHTSA.

ODI’s initial investigation of the incidents confirmed that BlueCruise was incorporated into each of the vehicles right before the collision, as confirmed by their initial investigation, which was conducted by the ODI.

It is important to note that BlueCruise is only available on specific roads and relies on a camera-based driver monitoring system to identify whether the driver is paying attention to the road.

NHTSA has said that as part of the investigation, the performance of the system will be evaluated on dynamic driving tasks and the driver’s activity will be monitored, according to the agency.

SEE ALSO:

Elon Musk To Discuss Enabling Full Self Driving (FSD) Mode On Tesla Cars In China