The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has initiated a preliminary investigation into Ford Motor Company’s hands-free driving technology known as BlueCruise. This probe was launched after two incidents involving Mustang Mach-E cars colliding with stationary vehicles, resulting in at least one fatality each. Both collisions occurred during nighttime conditions.
The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation opened the evaluation to look into BlueCruise after finding that the system was engaged in both vehicles right before the accidents. The investigation will focus on the system’s performance in dynamic driving tasks and driver monitoring. At the time of publication, Ford Motor had not issued a statement regarding the investigation.
In a separate development, the NHTSA confirmed last week that it has opened an investigation into Tesla’s recall of over 2 million vehicles in December. This recall was to install new Autopilot safeguards, and the investigation is to determine if the recall is adequate. The investigation covers various Tesla models equipped with Autopilot produced between 2012 and 2024.
The NHTSA’s concern arose after crash events occurred post-recall software update installation and results from tests of remedied vehicles. Despite these investigations, shares of Ford Motor were up 0.39% in premarket trading on Monday.