Customers proved eager to get their hands on hands-free driving technology in 2025. Last year, Ford says, it added half a million new BlueCruise-equipped vehicles on the road across both Ford and Lincoln brands. BlueCruise usage surged in 2025, with total hands-free miles driven increasing by 88%, according to Ford’s data.
BlueCruise is Ford’s Level 2 automated driving system. It pairs systems such as adaptive cruise control with lane keeping assistance, allowing drivers to take their hands off the wheel while keeping their eyes on the road. At the time of this writing, the system is mapped to work on over 130,000 miles of North American roads.
The SAE classifies self-driving technology into five levels. Levels 0 through 2 are considered driver support features, while Levels 3 through 5 are classified as having autonomous capability. Almost every automaker’s system is still at Level 2. Ford is looking to offer vehicles at Level 3 in 2028. At Level 3, drivers will be able to look away from the road, but must stay ready to take over driving if prompted. Mercedes-Benz offers a Level 3 system, but it’s only legal in Nevada and parts of California.
BlueCruise Stats
Ford’s From the Road website released a BlueCruise data round-up with a deep dive into BlueCruise usage for 2025.
BlueCruise is currently available across nine Ford vehicle lines: Explorer, Expedition, F-150, F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E, and the entire Lincoln lineup. In 2025, F-150, Mustang Mach-E, and F-150 Lightning customers drove the most miles and spent the most time using BlueCruise.
F-150 customers are BlueCruise super users, logging the most BlueCruise miles (118 million miles) in 2025, according to Ford’s data. They also spent the most time using BlueCruise (1.6 million hours) compared to other equipped vehicles.
The biggest change in usage came from Lincoln Nautilus drivers, who spent nearly 160,000 hours using BlueCruise. That’s a 250% increase from 2024 and the largest year-over-year increase of any Ford or Lincoln vehicle.
Over 60% of BlueCruise trips were under 20 minutes, showing that drivers likely use this feature for daily commutes. Longer drives also saw an increase, with over 1.6 million BlueCruise trips over an hour long on controlled-access highways.
The holiday season proved to be the most popular time for using BlueCruise. The Friday before Thanksgiving saw the most trips taken (over 72,000). Meanwhile, just after Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 27, the most BlueCruise miles and hours were driven (over 1.2 million miles and nearly 18,000 hours).
Drivers in California, Michigan, Texas, Florida, and Ohio logged the most BlueCruise miles in 2025.
BlueCruise usage is expected to grow in 2026 as software updates and more vehicle lines with the technology debut in Europe.
