Though Ford gave up on the commercial autonomous vehicle technology company Argo AI some time ago, it wound up creating one of its own shortly thereafter – Latitude AI, which has since been focusing on Level 3 autonomy, rather than Level 4 and 5, which the automaker doesn’t see as a profitable venture in the short term. Just over one year ago, Ford CEO Jim Farley revealed that the automaker was “getting really close” to achieving Level 3 autonomy, and now, those comments are being echoed by Ford Pro CFO Navin Kumar.
“And building a customer install base with BlueCruise is really important to build trust in the brand and the solutions. And this is a precursor to Level 3 autonomy, which is right around the corner,” the Ford Pro executive said during his appearance at the Deutsche Bank Global Auto Industry Conference. “And with Level 3, it’s eyes-off on-highway driving, and that’s really game-changing. We’re developing those solutions in-house with our Latitude team. And that consists of – many of the people were at Argo and transitioned to Ford a few years ago. And we believe our Level 2 and our future Level 3 solutions will be among the best in the industry in execution.”
Farley previously stated that he believes Ford could offer Level 3 autonomy to customers as early as 2026, making it the very first mass market automaker to do so. Currently, BlueCruise – and GM’s Super Cruise – use eye tracking devices to ensure that drivers are looking ahead, while Tesla’s Autopilot asks drivers to keep their hands on the wheel.
As Ford Authority recently reported, BlueCruise 1.5 just debuted in the 2025 Ford Mustang Mach-E, further helping the company inch toward its Level 3 ambitions. The most notable addition in this update is Automatic Lane Change, which enables users to stay engaged in hands-free mode longer than before, even in traffic. BlueCruise 1.5 will try to avoid merging with traffic that’s moving much faster than the vehicle, as well as the right-hand lane where off-ramps and inconsistent lane markings are present, or merging with traffic that requires the driver to put their hands back on the wheel.
Comments
If as the driver I am expected to keep watch over what this electrical crap is making my vehicle do; I MIGHT AS WELL BE DRIVING THE VEHICLE WITHOUT ANY OF THIS f EXPENSIVE CRAP IN IT !!!!! I CURRENTLY HAVE A 2024 NAVIGATOR AND HAVE NEVER USED IT !! START SAVING THE CUSTOMERS A LOT OF MONEY AND REMOVE THIS CRAP FROM EVERY VEHICLE NOW !!!!!
John is not wrong in several ways, but some items are very useful. Or even mandatory now and we wouldn’t have them w/o yesteryears r&d (cross traffic warning, rear cam, etc) . There are some that are so, so ( adaptive cruise control that works but can end up slowing you down when all you needed was to move over).
Many Drivers are so dumb we do need at least some to keep advancing the autonomous driving- how many times do you see that someone just tapped the brakes and then a chain reaction ends up slowing the highway down from 65 to 35 for no reason . While poor autonomous implementation might do the same thing, until refined w more r&d/ experience, we can’t build enough lanes to fix that or some other things so imagine full autonomous may be only way out of 100% gridlock 20 yrs from now -so have to dev it now. ( can’t imagine flying cars will fix things in that time frame)