F-150

Make
Ford
Segment
Sports Car

As the race toward full-self driving continues, automakers are offering varying levels of autonomous driving to their tech-obsessed customers. General Motors, for example, introduced Super Cruise. It may not be able to fully drive the vehicle, but it's very impressive.

But Ford wasn't going to sit around and let GM get all the glory. Instead, it started developing the similarly-named Blue Cruise, which would allow Mustang Mach-E and F-150 owners to palm off driving responsibilities on certain stretches of American highways - more than 130,000 miles, to be exact.

The technology is becoming increasingly popular amongst Ford owners, with the Blue Oval noting adoption rates have gone through the roof since it was introduced in July last year. In fact, 15,000 owners of 2021 F-150 and Mustang Mach-E E vehicles have received the hands-free driving tech through the company's Power-Up software updates.

In the coming months, that number is only expected to grow. The Dearborn-based company notes that 35,000 additional customers will soon be enjoying this feature. In total, 66,500 Ford drivers are sailing up American highways with the help of BlueCruise.

Just last month, a total of 4.5 million miles had been covered by BlueCruise users. Remarkably, that has since doubled to an astonishing 10.6 million, which highlights the ever-growing popularity of semi-autonomous technology. Ford's data shows most of the hands-free highway driving happens between Dallas and Houston, Cape Canaveral and Ft. Lauderdale, as well as Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.

The first route, for example, is mostly made up of highway driving. The benefits of this technology on a 240-mile road trip are clear to see - provided the driver is paying attention, of course. At this point, we should make Ford owners aware that the software update is only available to those who specified Ford's Co-Pilot 360 Active 2.0 Prep Package.

Ford CEO Jim Farley expressed delight over the 10 million-mile achievement, noting that there's still more to come in terms of digital vehicle experiences. "We are rapidly increasing the number of digital vehicles on the road with new services that create 'always-on' customer relationships with great software experiences," he added.

The Blue Oval has gone through restructuring and recently separated its ICE and EV businesses into two divisions, Ford Blue and Model e. But the company also created a third division, known as Ford Next. This tech-centric unit will allow Ford to spearhead its work in the self-driving sphere, and allow it to compete against industry giants like Tesla, for example.

Recently, Ford and its rival GM filed separate requests with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to trial up to 2,500 autonomous test vehicles without driver controls. With this, the Blue Oval is hoping to explore driverless delivery and e-hailing.