At the center of the inquiry are two crashes that resulted in fatalities, both occurring at night and involving Mach-Es traveling at freeway speeds with BlueCruise engaged. In these cases, the system failed to detect stationary vehicles, leading to deadly collisions.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has intensified its investigation into Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving technology by upgrading the inquiry to an engineering analysis. This decision follows two fatal crashes involving Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles equipped with BlueCruise,

The NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation review of reports for the Preliminary Evaluation found 32 crashes and 2,004 non-crash reports from Ford and owners about problems where Blue Cruise failed to detect and react to a potential collision. It found two more crashes where a Mach-E with BlueCruise engaged struck a stopped vehicle without braking.