The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced Monday that it is launching an investigation into Ford Motor Co.’s BlueCruise hands-free driving technology after two fatal crashes in which Mustang Mach-E SUVs collided with parked vehicles. .
agency’s Prior evaluation Introducing 130,000 2021-2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles is the first step in determining whether the vehicle poses an unreasonable risk to safety.
Ford said it is working with NHTSA to assist in the investigation.
The National Transportation Safety Board reported two crashes involving a Ford Mustang Mach-E using a BlueCruise that struck the rear of a stopped Honda CR-V on Interstate 10 in San Antonio on February 24. A separate investigation into the Mach-E accident has begun. , a 56-year-old Honda driver died in Texas.
The NTSB is also investigating a March 3 crash involving a Ford Mach-E in Philadelphia, another crash cited by NHTSA.
Auto safety regulators announced Monday that an initial investigation confirmed that a Blue Cruise was involved in the Philadelphia crash moments before the crash.
NHTSA previously launched special crash investigations into both fatal crashes. Both incidents occurred during “nighttime lighting conditions,” authorities said.
Ford offers BlueCruise, an advanced hands-free driving system that operates on 97% of U.S. and Canadian highways without intersections or traffic lights. The system uses a camera-based driver monitoring system to determine driver attentiveness.
NHTSA’s investigation includes Mach-E vehicles equipped with Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0, which includes a number of driver-assistance technologies, including BlueCruise, which was introduced in 2021 and is currently installed on Ford and Lincoln vehicles. .
NHTSA said the study will evaluate the system’s performance in dynamic driving tasks and driver monitoring.
Last week, NHTSA launched an investigation into whether a December recall for more than 2 million Tesla vehicles equipped with a new Autopilot software update was enough to ensure driver caution.
The update came following a series of crashes.
NHTSA began investigating after receiving reports of 20 crashes involving vehicles equipped with the new Autopilot software update.
The report said there were at least 13 fatal crashes in which “foreseeable driver misuse of the system clearly played a role.”
