Ford’s EVs, BlueCruise combine for better road trips

Until a long-promised future replete with driverless cars arrives, we're stuck behind the wheels of our own vehicles. Autonomous driving is slowly getting more… autonomous in places, but for passenger cars that still feature steering wheels, we still need to keep our hands on the wheel and eyes on the road—if you're not driving a GM with SuperCruise or a Ford with BlueCruise, that is.

Currently available only in certain trims of Ford's first two battery-electric vehicles, the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, BlueCruise enables hands-free driving on over 130,000 miles of divided highways around the US. It's essentially Ford's Co-Pilot 360 driver-assistance system paired with a set of cameras inside the car that monitor the driver's eyes to make sure they're looking at the road. 

I recently got to spend a week each with the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT and F-150 Lightning Platinum, both of which are equipped with BlueCruise. Those two weeks also coincided with a positive COVID test for my son, a freshman at the University of Iowa. As that university's COVID policy for positive tests boils down to "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," and I had my own (mild) bout about a month prior (and was double-boosted), I was dispatched to retrieve the boy so he could isolate at home. 

The biggest chunk of the ~215-mile route between suburban Chicago and Iowa City is Interstate 88, which is arguably one of the least interesting stretches of the Interstate Highway System. Along with I-294 and I-80, it has been mapped by Ford and is covered by BlueCruise. The prospect of over 850 miles of boring, back-and-forth driving suddenly seemed less onerous.

The frustrations of a masked driver

The Mach-E GT goes from 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds.

Credit: BradleyWarrenPhotography

Twenty-four hours after first showing symptoms, our son texted us a picture of his positive COVID test. At that point, the $69,600 Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition was sitting in the garage with about 190 miles of range. Having made the drive to Iowa City in our own BEV, I knew there was a Level 3 charger 40 or so miles short of our destination at Iowa 80, aka the "World's Largest Truckstop," outside of Walcott, Iowa. Having owned a BEV for close to three years, I also knew better than to chance the trip without so small a range buffer, so I went out to the garage and plugged our Electrify America home charger into the Mach-E.

As the name suggests, the GT is a souped-up version of the Mustang Mach-E. Sporting all-wheel drive, the GT can shoot from 0 to 60 in just 3.8 seconds. If that's not enough, the $5,000 Performance Edition drops that figure down to just 3.5 seconds. Its two electric motors churn out 480 hp (358 kW) with 634 lb-ft (860 Nm) of torque. The GT comes with Ford's 88 kWh Extended Range battery, which gives the Performance Edition GT a 260-mile range, a 10-mile decrease from the vanilla GT. 

Unbridled Mode makes the Mustang Mach-E feel more like its gas-powered namesake. You can even have it sound like one.

Credit: BradleyWarrenPhotography

When I checked the Electrify America app about three hours later, the Mach-E was north of 240 miles of range, so it was time to go. Once I got onto the Tri-State Tollway, I cued up the audiobook of Neal Stephenson's Anathem and turned on BlueCruise. After a couple of seconds, a blue steering wheel icon showed up on the digital instrument cluster with the words "Hands-Free" superimposed on it. I dropped my hands to my side, and the car kept doing what cars do.

For the roughly 170 miles between getting on the tollway and stopping at Iowa 80 to get enough juice to make it back to the charger, there wasn't a whole lot to do. I only had to put my hands on the steering wheel for three things: changing lanes, exiting the highway, and convincing the car I was paying attention to the road. Located just behind the steering wheel, BlueCruise's camera is always watching, and if it detects that the driver's attention has wandered, it will start chiming after several seconds. If hands don't return to the steering wheel within another few seconds, it will ultimately disengage. After all, BlueCruise is not self-driving—it requires the driver to remain attentive at all times.

There's no pony on the back of the GT.

Credit: BradleyWarrenPhotography

After collecting a cranky and mildly sick freshman at the University of Iowa, we began our return trip. It was another 215 miles back home, which necessitated another 40-minute or so charging stop. While BlueCruise didn't seem to mind my sunglasses, it struggled with the mask I was now wearing. Despite keeping my eyes glued to the road, BlueCruise would disengage every few minutes. That wasn't the only downside to the trip back. The GT has aggressively bolstered sport seats in the front. They're fine for shorter trips but are not the most supportive seats for four or more hours of driving. 

I dropped the Mach-E into Unbridled mode for a spell and immediately noticed a sharper response from the drivetrain and a tightening of the ride. If I felt like passing someone, acceleration was both immediate and intense. Yet the ride was still comfortable enough, even on cruddy sections of the perpetually under-construction Tri-State Tollway through the suburbs of Chicago.

Long drive, long charge

A bright-blue electric pickup truck.

Credit: BradleyWarrenPhotography

The case of COVID was thankfully mild, and day five dawned with no symptoms and a negative test, so it was time to make the trek back to Iowa City. This time, I was actually looking forward to the drive, as I was now behind the wheel of a bright-blue (Atlas Blue Metallic, actually) luxury pickup truck: a Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum 4x4 Supercrew. 

Priced at $93,509, the F-150 Lightning Platinum looked similar to the F-150 hybrid I drove last year, but with all the things. Massive center display? Check. Heated and ventilated seats with built-in massagers? Oh yeah. Three hundred miles of range? Let's hit the road, son!

The massive daytime running lights on the F-150 Lightning.

Credit: BradleyWarrenPhotography

The F-150 Lightning Platinum has just about everything one could want in a pickup truck. There are 580 hp and 775 lb-ft of torque, making the F-150's straight-line 0-to-60 speed of 4.0 seconds nothing short of startling. The ride quality is a bit better than the F-150 hybrid we tested last year. At the end of the day, it's box-on-frame construction, but the Lightning's independent rear suspension and lower center of gravity from its massive 131 kWh battery pack make for a more refined ride. 

We left with a full charge, and the truck reported an optimistic 330 miles of range on departure. There was a modest headwind out of the west, and both of us were anxious to get the trip over as quickly as possible, so I set BlueCruise in the high 70 mph range and let go of the steering wheel. 

In the F-150, the BlueCruise camera is located at the top left of the infotainment display. With the aforementioned negative COVID test, the ride back to Iowa City was unmasked, so the truck had no problem knowing where my eyes were. A couple of conversations were interrupted by chimes reminding me to look at the road instead of my passenger or the countryside, but that wasn't an issue on the return trip. It was easier to stay focused on the road and keep BlueCruise engaged driving alone. On the occasions when my mind and eyes wandered, both Fords chimed for my attention. 

Ford breaks down power consumption for each trip.

Credit: BradleyWarrenPhotography

In a vehicle the size of the F-150, it's only possible to get 300-plus miles of range with the 131 kWh battery pack. We averaged around 2.0 miles per kWh—just enough to get to Iowa City and back to the Level 3 charger at Iowa 80. But three years of EV ownership—including about five miles driven with the car showing zero miles of range—have taught me it's best to have a 15–20 percent range cushion, so we stopped to charge on the way there.

Notice how the charger output increased once the other BEV unplugged. For a charger rated at 125 kW, so adding ~18 kWh should take less than 10 minutes. The app's mileage-added estimate is bizarrely off.

Credit: Eric Bangeman

Off in the far reaches of the truck stop's massive parking lot is a solitary ChargePoint charging station. It's rated at 125 kW and can handle two cars at a time. When we pulled up in the F-150 Lightning, one of the spots was occupied by a Chevy Bolt. We pulled up, plugged in, and started charging… at a paltry 25 kW. Although the station is advertised as offering 125 kW charging, that's actually split between the two cables. I glanced at the display and saw the Bolt was charging at around 50 kW, so between the two vehicles, it was only putting out 75 kW total. At least it gave us extra time to experience the creature comforts of the F-150 Lightning, including the fully reclinable front seats. But I was anticipating a 10-minute stop, not close to 30 minutes of idle time while the truck sipped 18 kWh of electrons through a straw. On the way back, I had the charger to myself, so the truck topped out at 75 kW as I drew 95.6 kWh of power in 82 minutes.

There are two takeaways from my charging experience. First and more obvious: the Ford F-150 Lightning has a massive battery, so it's going to take longer to charge. Secondly, it's important to read the fine print on the chargers, especially when planning a trip. According to the ChargePoint app, the charger in question is 62.5-125 kW. The extremely useful PlugShare app shows it as a 125 kW charger. But it maxes out at 75 kW when charging, and even that is split between two chargers. The Level 3 charging experience you get may not be the one you expect, so it's always best to do your due diligence before hitting the road.