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xXChartmanXx

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So we just took a trip from San Diego to Colorado to drop my daughter off in Denver for college. Was approximately 2500 mile roundtrip (Thanks to the i70 being closed on the way out due to a landslide and closed on the way back due to flash floods). I was the only driver (Not letting the wife or daughter drive the truck yet lol) so needed to use cruise so I didn't kill my leg and back over that long of a drive. Ran about 1800 of the 2500 miles under Intelligent Cruise (Wish I had the beta for Blue Cruise...) and found it overall to be a very good system. It handled most driving situations well but it also leaves me thinking we are still a ways away from autonomous driving (or even hands free Blue Cruise). Here are the main issues I had:

1 - It does not consistently handle off-ramps well. It see's the line on the outside of the lane going off to the right and doesn't know which line to follow and half the time it ends lane keeping because it doesn't know what to do.
2 - Same thing goes for poorly marked lane lines. System cant handle it and ends lane keeping.
3 - Same thing for construction areas where lane lines have been moved but the old ones are still partially visible.
4 - It is not graceful when it slows down due to cars going slower then your set speed in front of you. It can be very jerky.
5 - Having to give it a nudge on the wheel so it knows your there still. My wife's VW has a touch sensitive wheel so as long as your touching it your fine.

Now I know that these seem like fairly obvious situations where lane keeping will have issues, but that's the point. When we go to Blue Cruise and the system hits those type of roads you better be ready to grab the wheel quick or your going to have major issues. Seems like we have a lot of major programming to go to be ready for all of these situations. Hopefully they capture the issues and use it to make the driving cloud smarter. Still saved my leg and back so I'm happy overall with it.
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xXChartmanXx

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The other thing I wanted to mention is that I have a 2021 Lariat Powerboost with a 4" BDS Lift, 35x12.5R20 Nitto Ridge Grapplers, and Fuel 20x9 +1mm wheels. The lane keeping and other sensors seemed to work fine even with the lift and bigger tires. I know there have been some questions about this from others.
 

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Same here as well. It’s great at some things, but still a far ways off from more advanced systems like Tesla has. On another planet really.

The need for absolutely perfectly marked lanes is annoying,and I’ve twice had it just decide to go nuts and turn out of the lane for a random shadow or skid mark it confused as a lane marker.

I also agree about approaching stopped traffic. If you’re within about 100ft of the car in front of you as everyone slows down it’ll correctly slow with traffic and come to a stop, but if you ever run into a situation where you’re on the highway doing 55+ and coming to stopped traffic because of an accident or traffic it’ll feel like it’s going to slam you into the back of then at full speed. No slowing down on its own until you’re uncomfortably close and it then sounds the crash imminent warning and goes berserk. It’s definitely just not using the front radar from a long enough distance to realize “I’m going to come to those cars REAL quick, maybe I should start slowing down now”.

The other thing is handling turns, sometimes it’ll do a nice smooth approach, but plenty of others (Especially if there’s any rain) it’ll do a very poor job of judging the radius of the turn and usually cut too tight coming in, then straighten out too much, then over compensate again, and if it ever crosses the line by messing up, instead of intelligently getting back into the lane, it’ll just cancel itself and send you on your own. Somewhat on this same topic is the tendency it has to hug the side of a lane instead of staying centered, usually the left side. I very often find the system practically riding the yellow line when it could over a good 18” to actually be centered in the road. Very nerve wracking when next to someone on the highway, always feel like it’ll cancel itself and we’ll collide.

I don’t use the Intelligent Cruise (Automatic speed changes based on signs) but I’ve noticed a few speed limit signs in my town fail to be detected. They’re the yellow diamond shaped ones with a regular speed limit in the middle. They’re used for a few places the speed limit drops in my town and the truck just ignores them, doesn’t seem to detect them as speed limit signs at all. This style, except I don’t think they have the arrow on them.

Definitely a work in progress and I hope to see OTAs improve some of this, it’s all stuff easily fixed in software.
 
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F-150 Prius

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Your experience is much the same as mine. I know to not be in the right lane passing off-ramps and to be on the lookout for weird or missing lane markings. It's generally very good at guessing the way to handle poorly marked lanes, but it does tend to just quietly beep and displayed "cancelled" … very easy to overlook when the truck is still on cruise, but not steering itself.

As with Tesla, Ford can't "read" construction zones or those light-bulb arrow boards or illuminated speed limit signs … much less see down the road and anticipate road works or a worker in a hi-viz waving a "slow" sign.

I tend to frequently change the "distance" setting of the distance-keeping … keeping it on "4" until I catch up to someone or there's traffic congestion, then nudging it down to "1" as needed.

I like that I can "overrule" the throttle and steering (by small amounts) to smooth out small perturbations … Tesla disengages before you can make any steering corrections (e.g. to miss a pothole) but it will sometimes shift laterally in the lane to keep away from a nearby vehicle in an adjacent lane.

I also like the way even with co-pilot off, the lane-keeping with help turn corners even on narrow country roads … still allowing the driver to steer the car through the turn and make adjustments.
I really like the way the Ford system doesn't nag. It will remind, then complain, but it puts up with a lot before it finally quits.

I'd like to see BlueCruise with a Head-Up Display so that those little icons decorations in the instrument panel can be large and in front of my field of view.

I'm keen to try BlueCruise. I think that will be the state of the art for a year or three till someone can crack the problem of an actually autonomous vehicle. Even then, I don't see any technology that can drive through weather that a human can handle, so I wonder what they're thinking if the self-driving vehicle makers put vehicles on the road that just have to pull over and stop when there's sunrise glare or rain or fog or snow or mud splashes on a camera, etc.

The other really hand accessory for long distance driving is the trusty beaded seat cover … allows airflow from the seat fans and relieves pressure points … makes a surprisingly significant difference. I don't use it around town, but when the destination is hours away, it slips on in seconds.

Ford F-150 Intelligent Cruise Control and Lane Keeping experience on a 2500 mile trip 1629837193983
 

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xXChartmanXx

xXChartmanXx

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Your experience is much the same as mine. I know to not be in the right lane passing off-ramps and to be on the lookout for weird or missing lane markings. It's generally very good at guessing the way to handle poorly marked lanes, but it does tend to just quietly beep and displayed "cancelled" … very easy to overlook when the truck is still on cruise, but not steering itself.

As with Tesla, Ford can't "read" construction zones or those light-bulb arrow boards or illuminated speed limit signs … much less see down the road and anticipate road works or a worker in a hi-viz waving a "slow" sign.

I tend to frequently change the "distance" setting of the distance-keeping … keeping it on "4" until I catch up to someone or there's traffic congestion, then nudging it down to "1" as needed.

I like that I can "overrule" the throttle and steering (by small amounts) to smooth out small perturbations … Tesla disengages before you can make any steering corrections (e.g. to miss a pothole) but it will sometimes shift laterally in the lane to keep away from a nearby vehicle in an adjacent lane.

I also like the way even with co-pilot off, the lane-keeping with help turn corners even on narrow country roads … still allowing the driver to steer the car through the turn and make adjustments.
I really like the way the Ford system doesn't nag. It will remind, then complain, but it puts up with a lot before it finally quits.

I'd like to see BlueCruise with a Head-Up Display so that those little icons decorations in the instrument panel can be large and in front of my field of view.

I'm keen to try BlueCruise. I think that will be the state of the art for a year or three till someone can crack the problem of an actually autonomous vehicle. Even then, I don't see any technology that can drive through weather that a human can handle, so I wonder what they're thinking if the self-driving vehicle makers put vehicles on the road that just have to pull over and stop when there's sunrise glare or rain or fog or snow or mud splashes on a camera, etc.

The other really hand accessory for long distance driving is the trusty beaded seat cover … allows airflow from the seat fans and relieves pressure points … makes a surprisingly significant difference. I don't use it around town, but when the destination is hours away, it slips on in seconds.

1629837193983.png
I'll have to try the beaded seat cover on the next long trip.
 

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I've never tried the beaded seat cushion but it sure looks painful.
 

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Same experience for me too. I typically chicken out and hit the brakes vs letting the truck slam on the brakes. I also worry that the aggressive braking will shorten the life of the pads. I’ve talked to a couple people on the forum regarding the blue Cruise and from what I’m told it’s on a totally different level because it will also use GPS + Radar + cameras. At least I would hope so if not I can’t see the NTSB or whoever approves these things to sign off on Blue Cruise.
 

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I've never tried the beaded seat cushion but it sure looks painful.
Right. It looks uncomfortable, it looks like cheap junk, that NY taxi drivers use. But it works. The seat ventilation is 10x better and there's no (less?) pressure point discomfort after hours in the saddle.
 
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xtraman122

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Same experience for me too. I typically chicken out and hit the brakes vs letting the truck slam on the brakes. I also worry that the aggressive braking will shorten the life of the pads. I’ve talked to a couple people on the forum regarding the blue Cruise and from what I’m told it’s on a totally different level because it will also use GPS + Radar + cameras. At least I would hope so if not I can’t see the NTSB or whoever approves these things to sign off on Blue Cruise.
There are already people out there using the Blue Cruise beta. Doesn’t appear to be a heck of a lot different than current lane centering cruise control in terms of its abilities. Doesn’t mean it can’t/won’t change in the future, but I wouldn’t expect the first release of it to be much different than the beta.
 

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My experience is pretty much the same as these great reviews. My biggest gripe is the keep hands on steering wheel warnings. I will have my hands on the wheel and it seems to have difficulty sensing. Its annoying to the point I get tired of squeezing tightly and will turn off the cruise system all together.
 

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Sandy Munro - if you like his stuff; sometimes he's too grumpy and self-impressed for my taste - just did a Blue Cruise test drive and posted it on Youtube. There were a few new learnings about BC, for me at least.

Re: one of Mike's comments, I find Lane Centering is easier to live with if I use the blinker when e.g. I want to use an offramp. There's one I always take off a 60 mph highway and the 'blinker on, lane centering clicks off, steer to the ramp, and lane centering reacquires' seems to work smoothly.

Tho' all the comments resonate with me as well, I will say that the very first time I drove my Lariat PB it was for 1400 miles (IA to AZ) and I was really impressed with its ACC + LC capabilities. Two of the three days was in mixed weather (drizzle & fog to typhoon like rain when behind semis) and it was seeing the lines better than I could. This was in a mix of road conditions from county roads to interstates while I sat in what seemed like a bank vault with Sirius XM music being piped in. So despite the gotcha's that lurk unseen, I remain very pleased with these features. The one exception for me is the heavy ACC braking and accelerating in stop & go traffic. And I doubt BC will improve on that at all.

Jack
 
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xXChartmanXx

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Sandy Munro - if you like his stuff; sometimes he's too grumpy and self-impressed for my taste - just did a Blue Cruise test drive and posted it on Youtube. There were a few new learnings about BC, for me at least.

Re: one of Mike's comments, I find Lane Centering is easier to live with if I use the blinker when e.g. I want to use an offramp. There's one I always take off a 60 mph highway and the 'blinker on, lane centering clicks off, steer to the ramp, and lane centering reacquires' seems to work smoothly.

Tho' all the comments resonate with me as well, I will say that the very first time I drove my Lariat PB it was for 1400 miles (IA to AZ) and I was really impressed with its ACC + LC capabilities. Two of the three days was in mixed weather (drizzle & fog to typhoon like rain when behind semis) and it was seeing the lines better than I could. This was in a mix of road conditions from county roads to interstates while I sat in what seemed like a bank vault with Sirius XM music being piped in. So despite the gotcha's that lurk unseen, I remain very pleased with these features. The one exception for me is the heavy ACC braking and accelerating in stop & go traffic. And I doubt BC will improve on that at all.

Jack
Yah it seems to reacquire the lane centering well when using your blinker to change lanes or exit. Wish it would understand I don't want to exit the freeway when I don't have a blinker on though, it just randomly decides to follow the outside line off the freeway or sometimes just stays put with no rhyme or reason to it. Overall I'm happy, definitely the best system I've used but I just got my wife an all electric VW ID.4 which has a similar system except the steering wheel is touch sensitive so you don't have to give it a jerk to recognize your in control so we'll see about that one.
 

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just did 4000 mile trip, same things as OP and the steering wheel warnings are VERY annoying and more sensitive than my other 3, 2021 vehicles (not fords). Hope they are able to tone it down.
 

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it just randomly decides to follow the outside line off the freeway or sometimes just stays put with no rhyme or reason to it.
I've experimented. I think the "rhyme" is the clarity of the painted lines … if the far side of the exit is clearly marked, co-pilot doesn't hesitate … if the exit is like most freeway off-ramps (faded lines because everyone is changing lanes and braking) then it chooses the strongest "signal" and that's often the paint line on the edge of the road, not between the lanes, so it follows that outside edge paint line off into the off-ramp … then it "sees" it goofed and then it just beeps and displayed "cancelled".
the steering wheel is touch sensitive
That's where BlueCruise is a game-changer … long stretches between any need to touch the wheel ... just keep alert.
Also, co-pilot is not annoying, I just have a reflex level of effort to turn the wheel against resistance just enough to satisfy the reminder system. A small price to pay for both safety and hundreds of hours of comfortable distance driving.
I think some people thing the idea is to "squeeze" the wheel (pressure or touch sensitive) and that would lead to frustration because the system needs the driver to turn the wheel against the resistance of the self-steering system to confirm you're there and alert.
Overall I'm happy, definitely the best system I've used
That's the bottom line: happy. Can't imagine ever buying another vehicle without it. Maybe Tesla has some plusses and Ford has some plusses over Tesla, but both are great, only Tesla has a huge price and it still doesn't exist, so no argument about it, Ford has the win in handsfree (and I think GM is about the same as Ford, but not in a pickup.)
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