Today's announcement below makes one wonder what charges there will be for any Blue Cruise updates, or maybe continuations of service. A little scary to me. On the positive side, maybe it will move things along with some opportunities
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Ford hires former Apple exec Peter Stern to lead new software services group

Stern was named president of Ford Integrated Services and will be in charge of building out a business tied to Ford's BlueCruise hands-free driver-assist system, as well as safety and security services for the Ford Pro commercial business unit.

 

I’ll just bounce around to whoever doesn’t do this tbh

 

You're going to be stuck with old used vehicles quite soon.

May as well say you're going to bounce around to whoever lets you get a manual transmission (like, clutch) in any vehicle. Or still has a cassette player

Or, you know, just don't pay the subscriptions

 

we’ll see. I don’t think everyone will come out if the gate hard with it yet. I’ll gladly go GM or ram if they are less aggressive with it. I don’t think not wanting to pay monthly expenses on top of a monthly expense quite equates to wanting a Cassette player, but nice try at humor!

 

Could be worse--could be like Mercedes and BMW, who sell you a car with certain features built in, but charge subscriptions so you can use them.

 

BMW starting easing off that. But yeah, I think OTA updates are quickly ushering in that era

 

Pretty sure GM was already being more aggressive than Ford with it...

But, maybe you'll get lucky and one of the truck makers will announce hands free driving free for life and they won't bake the cost into the purchase price either. I mean...anything is possible

 

I don't much miss the cassettes, but I do miss the CD player

 

He's a smart guy with a solid business background so I hope he doesn't discover jumping on the Ford train is harder than expected. So much inertia in a company of Ford's size and history. Its a ship that slow to turn.

 

Honestly I can see it for things like Blue cruise just because it will probably update a lot as more is learned and the system evolves/impoves
I cannot see it working well for being able to use your seat heaters etc. There will also likely be a quick industry work around for seat heater type stuff already installed, for example you buy a tune from 5 star and bypass the subscription stuff installed on your truck