NHTSA Turns Up The Heat In Ford BlueCruise Investigation

Back in January, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free highway driving assist feature following two fatal crashes – both involving the use of that tech in Ford Mustang Mach-E crossovers. The investigation pertains to 129,222 2021-2024 Mustang Mach-E crossovers, as well as one specific problem – in some cases, those vehicles have crashed into stationary vehicles while BlueCruise is activated, due to poor visibility and limitations in regard to the detection of certain objects at higher speeds. Now, the NHTSA is intensifying its investigation.

The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has sent Ford a letter with a number of questions pertaining to BlueCruise in the latest development of this investigation, according to TechCrunch. These 25 questions range in scope from asking for a detailed list of all vehicles that are equipped with BlueCruise to requests for internal documents pertaining to development of the tech feature, software changes that have taken place, and documentation related to the aforementioned fatal crashes.

Ford is working with the NHTSA to further this investigation, which is currently in the engineering analysis stage. It’s part of the progression, but this information request is the first from the safety organization since it opened the query back in January. It’s a necessary step, however, that comes before the NHTSA can officially request that Ford issue a recall, if that indeed becomes the case. The automaker has a deadline of August 6^th to answer the questions in this new document.

During the course of its initial investigation, the NHTSA and Ford discovered that there are “limitations in the detection of stationary vehicles in certain conditions,” which seems to be happening at certain speeds as well. “Due to the potential for false detection of stationary objects at long distances, Ford designed ACC to inhibit any response to reported stationary objects when the subject vehicle’s approach speed is at or above 62 mph,” the NHTSA noted. “Additionally, system performance may be limited when there is poor visibility due to insufficient illumination.”