My Hands-Free Highway Commute: As Told by a BlueCruise Manager

Written By Kevin Wegienka

Aug 13, 2025

As a member of the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) team at Ford, my professional life revolves around BlueCruise1 and continuing to improve the hands-free highway driving experience for our customers.

After we launch a new version of BlueCruise, we continue to learn, test, and refine it further — whether it be performance improvements or new enhancements — through our Continuous Learning Loop development process. Most recently, we rolled out Automatic Lane Change with BlueCruise 1.5, through which BlueCruise will smoothly and seamlessly initiate a lane change for you.

Every workday looks a little different for me. Sometimes, I’m in the office, while other times I’m out on the road or in the simulator developing and evaluating our latest BlueCruise efforts. No matter what I have planned, though, I need to commute about 30 miles from the suburbs to a Ford facility — and I use BlueCruise to do it.

I say goodbye to my family and jump in my 2025 Mustang Mach-E, which has our latest BlueCruise 1.5 software. I’m very proud of the improvements we made here. Not only does it help keep you moving through highway traffic with system-initiated lane changes, it also has performance improvements from prior versions, which slow the vehicle down before a curve and provide greater in-lane stability, giving you more comfort as BlueCruise assists you. And, we are also expanding BlueCruise 1.5 to 2026 model year vehicles including the Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, and Lincoln Nautilus.

Once I’m on the freeway, I like to hop in the middle lanes and activate BlueCruise to let the technology do what it does best — help make my commute less stressful and more relaxing. On an average highway drive to work, I usually only put my hands on the wheel at highway interchanges, which is how the system is designed. This makes for a very relaxing drive as I gear up for a busy day, especially if I hit some stop-and-go traffic.

Fun fact about me: I love the smell of coffee, but hate the taste, so I just drink water in the mornings. But to get my brain fueled and going, I usually listen to an automotive or racing podcast on my drive. Shout out to Wheel Bearings, one of my favorites! Share what you are listening to and how you fuel yourself on your commute while enjoying hands-free highway driving. You can share via #BlueCruise, and if you have an electric vehicle, you can drop your story at the link below.

Kevin Wegienka is manager of BlueCruise Core Development