- Ford lowered the price of its BlueCruise advanced driving assistance system.
- Owners of compatible vehicles can also buy the feature to use forever.
Ford has lowered the price of its BlueCruise hands-free highway driving assistant in the United States. The change went into effect at the beginning of the month and owners who already have an active subscription will see the reduced prices at the next payment.
The monthly subscription cost has gone down from $75 to $49.00, while the annual subscription is now $495, down from $800 previously. Ford also discontinued the option to subscribe to BlueCruise for three years on 2025 model-year vehicles but added the option to buy the feature forever for a one-time fee of $2,495. The three-year option has a price of $2,100.
Currently, BlueCruise is available on the all-electric F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E, as well as the gas-powered Explorer, Expedition and F-150. For 2025 model-year cars, new owners will get one year of BlueCruise as standard or a $495 option when they order the vehicle, depending on the trim level.
The $2,495 one-time purchase option will be available on select 2025 model-year vehicles when they are ordered new. Ford said customers who purchase a new 2024 or 2024 BlueCruise-equipped vehicle will also be eligible to upgrade to the one-time purchase if they want. It’s not clear, however, what happens to older models, such as the 2023 F-150 Lightning.
Last week, Ford said the latest version of BlueCruise, 1.4, dramatically decreases disengagements compared to previous iterations, allowing for longer hands-free highway driving stints. BlueCruise 1.4 will be installed from the factory on select 2025 Ford and Lincoln vehicles, with older cars getting it as an over-the-air update, although the company didn’t say which cars would be eligible for the upgrade.
Ford BlueCruise only works on divided highways. In North America, there are 130,000 miles of pre-mapped roads where the advanced driving assistant system (ADAS) can be engaged. By comparison, General Motors’ Super Cruise works on 750,000 highway miles, while Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving (Supervised) can theoretically work on any type of road, including city streets.
All these features are considered Level 2 systems on SAE’s levels of driving autonomy table, meaning the driver still has to pay attention and is responsible if anything goes wrong. Ford BlueCruise is capable of automatically adjusting the vehicle’s speed, steering and braking depending on the traffic conditions. It can also do automatic lane changes at the driver’s input and adjust the car’s position inside the lane.
