Ford is releasing a new version of its BlueCruise hands-free driving software, version 1.4, which it claims will let you keep your hands off the wheel twice as long. In fact, the company tells us it can now run an average of five times longer compared to last year’s version 1.2 and double that of 1.3, which started rolling out more recently. The company doesn’t specify exactly how long, on average, a vehicle can be driven using BlueCruise.

The improvements come thanks to new “motion controller” software that Ford says keeps your BlueCruise-equipped vehicle better centered in its lane as well as improvements in handling different weather conditions, tight curves, narrow lanes, and reflections from the sun.

I recently tested BlueCruise 1.2 in a 2024 Lincoln Nautilus, and I felt it already operated smoothly when navigating tight curves. However, after some sudden rainfall, the system did warn me to put my hands back on the wheel, so perhaps version 1.4 could improve that situation.

BlueCruise 1.4 will ship w
ith the new 2025 Ford F-150 and the 2025 Lincoln Navigator to start, and it will also come as an over-the-air (OTA) software update “to select vehicle lines in the future.” Ford has not confirmed which vehicles will get the OTA update, PR representative Whitney Pineda tells The Verge.

Consumer Reports ranks BlueCruise as the top advanced driver-assistance system in the market right now, beating out GM’s Super Cruise and Tesla’s Autopilot. Ford says 492,000 vehicles on the road are equipped with BlueCruise worldwide.

Source: Tourism Africa