The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is escalating its probe into the Ford Mustang Mach-E’s BlueCruise system.
Last April, the NHTSA began a preliminary investigation into Ford motor Company’s BlueCruise partial driving automation system after two fatal accidents involving Mustang Mach-Es. In both cases, the vehicles were traveling over 70 mph in nighttime conditions, striking stationary vehicles. The agency’s initial efforts essentially work out to a fact-finding mission, working with the automaker to determine whether there’s a serious problem warranting a full-scale recall. This week, it steps up its probe to an “engineering analysis”, to determine if system limitations within Ford’s “Co-Pilot 360 Active 2.0” package, which includes the BlueCruise hands-free system, are a danger that needs to be addressed through a recall campaign.
The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) is also investigating other non-fatal crashes as part of Ford’s June 2024 response to the preliminary investigation, as well as near-miss incidents as part of its analysis. The agency noted a trend of non-crash reports where driver’s alleged the Mach-E’s adaptive cruise control system — engaged as part of the BlueCruise semi-autonomous setup — failed to detect and respond to stopped or slow-moving lead vehicles. In those events, drivers had to suddenly and harshly brake to avoid a collision. Two other non-fatal crashes involved models equipped with Ford’s Lane Centering Assist (LCA) system.
In the opening resume, the ODI investigator notes that Ford’s ACC and Pre-Collision Assist (PCA) systems use a combination of cameras and radar sensors to detect and classify various objects. That’s an industry-standard practice, wherein the adaptive cruise control is specifically designed to pick out and act upon vehicles and bicycles which are either stationary or moving in the same direction as the vehicle itself.
However, the NHTSA claims Ford specifically programmed the ACC portion of BlueCruise to ignore stationary objects when the vehicle is traveling above 62 mph. That is due to the potential for false positives at long distances, where the car may react unexpectedly — such as “phantom braking” — when there’s no actual hazard to worry about. Avoiding false identification may be an exacerbating factor in the system’s supposed inability to properly react when drivers are traveling over 62 mph, though, and the agency notes Ford’s system may not perform as well in low-visibility conditions as it would in more favorable conditions.
In addition to all the data it already has, this engineering analysis will actually get investigators hands-on with Ford Mustang Mach-Es between model years 2021 and 2024 (that is the current scope of this probe). If it finds there is a serious defect within BlueCruise, or at least some versions, the NHTSA may compel Ford to recall at least 129,222 vehicles to addressed the alleged problem.
U.S. safety regulators aren’t just looking at potential defects in Ford’s BlueCruise system, either. Both the NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating fatal crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems, with the latter affecting 2.4 million Tesla vehicles after reports of four crashes, including one fatal accident in April 2024.
