BlueCruise Usage Skyrockets 88%

[Administrator]

BlueCruise Usage Skyrockets 88% as F-150 Drivers Lead the Hands-Free Charge

January 27, 2026

by Russ Mixon, senior manager BlueCruise Go-to-Market at Ford.

Hands-free highway driving technology like BlueCruise1 is quickly moving from a “nice to have” to a “must have” feature to help make daily commutes and road trips easier.


According to a 2025 AutoPacific study, 43% of people planning to buy a new car say it is the feature they want most.


At Ford, we are seeing that demand firsthand. In 2025 alone, we put more than half a million new BlueCruise-equipped vehicles on the road across Ford and Lincoln — an 80% increase from 2024. That brings our global total to 1.22 million vehicles.


But the real insight is how much customers are actually using the technology. BlueCruise usage in the U.S. surged in 2025 — with an 88% increase in total hands-free miles driven and a 50% increase in BlueCruise trips taken by Ford and Lincoln owners compared to the previous year.

With this growth, we are taking a look back at 2025 data and trends in the U.S. as part of our second annual BlueCruise Mapped data round-up.


A note on privacy: This data is anonymized and is only collected from customers who have opted in to share it with Ford.


F-150 Crowned BlueCruise 'Superusers,' Lincoln Nautilus Usage Jumps

BlueCruise is now available across nine Ford vehicle lines — Explorer, Expedition, F-150, F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E, and the entire Lincoln line-up — to give more customers who want an electric, hybrid, or gas-powered Ford vehicle access to hands-free highway driving.


In 2025, F-150, Mustang Mach-E, and F-150 Lightning customers drove the most miles and spent the most time using BlueCruise, maintaining the top spots from 2024.


As the Ford F-Series marks its 49th consecutive year as America’s best-selling truck,2F-150 customers also maintained their lead as the "BlueCruise Superusers." In 2025, F-150 customers logged the most BlueCruise miles (118 million miles) and spent the most time using BlueCruise (1.6 million hours), compared to other equipped vehicles. Notably, they increased their usage by 101% year-over-year.

With new versions of software, we have seen an increase in BlueCruise usage. In 2025, we started shipping 2025 F-150 and 2025 F-150 Lightning vehicles from the factory with one of our latest versions of software, BlueCruise 1.4. We also deployed the first BlueCruise software update to eligible truck owners. Depending on the model year, it took eligible F-150 and F-150 Lightning owners from BlueCruise 1.0 or 1.2 all the way to BlueCruise 1.4.


This software upgrade enabled an even better hands-free highway driving experience for truck customers, as evidenced by F-150 Lightning customers who drove over 32 million miles using BlueCruise, nearly a 60% increase from the previous year.


But the biggest change in usage came from Lincoln Nautilus customers. They drove over 11.3 million miles and spent nearly 160,000 hours using BlueCruise — a nearly 250% increase from the previous year and the largest year-over-year increase of any Ford or Lincoln vehicle line. We expect usage to rise even further in 2026 with the new Lincoln Nautilus shipping to customers with BlueCruise 1.5 and Automatic Lane Change.


BlueCruise Road Trips Up 120% in 2025

Customers continued to use BlueCruise for shorter trips such as daily commutes, as over 60% of BlueCruise trips taken in 2025 were under 20 minutes. Yet longer drives, like road trips, had a huge uptick.


In the U.S., there were over 1.6 million BlueCruise trips taken on controlled access highways that were over one hour, representing a 120% increase from 2024. This data re-affirms that customers are seeing the value BlueCruise can deliver, especially when taking a summer vacation or going to see grandmother for the holidays.


Holidays Are the Most Popular Time to Use BlueCruise

Thanksgiving took the lead over Labor Day in 2025 with the most BlueCruise trips taken. The most popular day to use BlueCruise in 2025 was November 21, the Friday before Thanksgiving, with over 72,000 trips taken. This surge on a single day suggests many folks were likely making one last commute, then departing for the holiday week.


In fact, there were 28,000 more trips taken on this day than the most popular day in 2024, which was Friday, August 30 (Labor Day Weekend). That’s a nearly 40% increase.


The holiday week in December was also a hot time to travel. Saturday, December 27 stole the top spot for the most BlueCruise miles and hours driven on a single day, with over 1.2 million miles and nearly 18,000 hours, an over 100% increase in usage when compared to the peak day from the previous year (Saturday, December 20). However, December 20 followed close behind as the second highest peak day in 2025 with 1.24 million miles and over 17,400 hours.

States Leading From Coast to Coast

The five states with the most BlueCruise usage across the U.S. maintained their lead from 2024 to 2025 with customers in California, Michigan, Texas, Florida, and Ohio driving the most miles and spending the most time hands-free.


California maintained its three-year lead across all 50 states with over 23 million BlueCruise miles and over 370,000 hours driven in 2025, a 51% increase from 2024.

Looking Ahead to 2026

To date, customers have logged over half a billion miles globally (600+ million miles) using BlueCruise. We expect this number to only grow in 2026 as BlueCruise debuts on four additional vehicle lines in Europe.


This year, we will also mark another significant milestone as we roll out our latest version of software, BlueCruise 1.5, which includes Automatic Lane Change capability, to the first gasoline and hybrid-powered vehicles: the 2026 Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, and Lincoln Nautilus SUVs.


The expansion underscores our team’s commitment to invest in the BlueCruise software across a variety of vehicle types, whether equipped from the factory or via software updates, to continue delivering performance improvements or new features.


Russ Mixon is senior manager BlueCruise Go-to-Market at Ford.

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[astrand1]

I use the shit out of BC. I do wish they would have an update. I’d love to see 1.5 but at the least maybe an update to smooth out not only the braking but the steering. It still seems to have issues on some tighter turns. It wants to overcorrect. And when it’s in a turn it is very jerky with the wheel as it’s returning back to center as the road straightens out. Having said that I do love it and mostly it works well. Los Angeles freeways are a challenge for sure with the shitty almost non existent lane lines.

 

[BSEE SPARKY]

I would like to see better speed sign recognition. So that it does not go from 65 mph to 45 mph when it sees a hwy id sign. Indiana 45.

ADAS Level 3 too.

 

[SNBI18]

No thanks, not worth the money. It's crazy you spend 80k and you still have to pay for a feature that's already built in. Anyone paying for it is attributing a can of worms BMW started. It's not even like it's self driving, it's just glorified cruise control that's not even smooth. When someone lane changes into your lane you and your family have to deal with an aggressive slow down. First it's glorified cruise control, then heated seats, a/c seats, etc.

 

[Phil3315]

The surge in 2025 is not from sales, it’s because of the BlueCruise 1.4 updates finally getting pushed out to those of us that have been waiting years for it. The BlueCruise 1.0 that came on my 2022 Lightning was a dangerous disaster, nothing like what was advertised. The 1.4 update is what it was advertised to be, not perfect, but useful hands free driving that you can trust most of the time. Yes there are still improvements to be made, but version 1.4 is the first usable version, previous versions should have been considered beta.
Ford really should give those people a 30 day free trial after they upgrade them to 1.4, as nobody that used 1.0 will ever consider paying for BlueCruise as they won’t believe it will be much better

 

[ClevelandBeemer]

I love BC. I truly hope improvements continue to be rolled out to the Lightning.

 

[galstaf]

No thanks, not worth the money. It's crazy you spend 80k and you still have to pay for a feature that's already built in. Anyone paying for it is attributing a can of worms BMW started. It's not even like it's self driving, it's just glorified cruise control that's not even smooth. When someone lane changes into your lane you and your family have to deal with an aggressive slow down. First it's glorified cruise control, then heated seats, a/c seats, etc.

I don't disagree with this. For $50 a month, Blue Cruise is an embarrassment. It should be $10/mo for what it does if they are going to use their customers as guinea pigs for their beta testing.

Especially when you see where Tesla's latest version is operating on same old hardware, but the functionality and control is light years ahead of Blue Cruise.

Ford has been in business for over a century and sat on it's hands while some upstart company run by an egotistical drug addled nutcase that is barely over a decade into mass production is killing Ford on EV's and FSD and software (as well has having 20x the market cap).

As a first time Ford buyer (about 3 weeks in), I can see why Ford is getting owned by Tesla and the Chinese car makers. The Lightning is actually a great truck, but the whole organization and app and software update model that goes around it is an embarrassment.
The fact that the C suite managers of Ford lock themselves off from actual customer feedback is likely not helping.

Surely someone at Ford can run a company better than Musk, no?

 

[Jamchampnate]

These numbers are gonna plummet free trials start running out.

 

[ImGoingEN]

Add more roads like Super Cruise, enable better notices when going through toll booths to grab back onto the steering wheel.

 

[MountainAlive]

I like Blue Cruise and use it multiple times a week on my commuting. However, I’m on the free trial for a few years. Once that ends I’m not sure I want to pay like $50/month for it. Maybe $10 or $12.

 

[Jesse-Infotainment]

They have had several vehicles include a 3 year pre payment. So Im sure a lot of it is due to that. They are even starting to have a 3 year Sirius prepayment along with a prepayment for connectivity

My truck had the 3 years included.

 

[mattskr]

I saw no mention of adding more roads…so many rural roads I drive in Texas are divided with hardly any traffic and no BC support. Cmon Ford.

 

[chriserx]

I realize there are 3 year plans, trial extensions, etc, but am I the only one that finds it strange that the Lightning had 16% of miles driven using BC? Seems kinda high given how low volume it seemed to be. Are that many F150s sold without BC hardware? Any other angles I may be missing?

 

[PrimeRisk]

All I can say is that there is a huge difference between putting Bluecruise equipped vehicles on the road vs paying customers. I'd like to see what the subscription rate is after people's trials end.

 

[PrimeRisk]

The surge in 2025 is not from sales, it’s because of the BlueCruise 1.4 updates finally getting pushed out to those of us that have been waiting years for it. The BlueCruise 1.0 that came on my 2022 Lightning was a dangerous disaster, nothing like what was advertised. The 1.4 update is what it was advertised to be, not perfect, but useful hands free driving that you can trust most of the time. Yes there are still improvements to be made, but version 1.4 is the first usable version, previous versions should have been considered beta.
Ford really should give those people a 30 day free trial after they upgrade them to 1.4, as nobody that used 1.0 will ever consider paying for BlueCruise as they won’t believe it will be much better

My '24 came with 1.3 (I think, as they refuse to actually reveal that information) and I wouldn't give a dime for it. I found it not just of very limited value, but truly dangerous. I've finally gotten 1.4 according to the update notes, but I'll never experience it unless Ford gives a new trial. I have no faith that 1.4 is enough of an improvement to warrant spending $10 to try it, much less $50.

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