One point that we seldom hear about with legacy automaker Ford (F) is its BlueCruise system. BlueCruise, Ford’s attempt at self-driving, has certainly made some advances, but it still leaves quite a bit to be desired. However, Ford is about to augment the system with a set of incoming updates. This sat quite well with investors, and Ford shares were up fractionally in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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A combination of hardware and software improvements, reports note, will go into the new BlueCruise update, dubbed BlueCruise 1.4. With these improvements, BlueCruise users will be able to get more hands-off time out of their drives, cut back on the number of interruptions, and also get better handling in road conditions that might balk some human drivers.
The changes will allow for better speed control around curves, and a better “in-lane stability” through the use of a new kind of motion controller. Better yet, for those times when road glare or bad weather would make your own ability to drive limited, the BlueCruise system will be able to better step in and take over in those times. That is an excellent use case for an autonomous driving system in general.
Expanded Recall
And, because it seems like Ford can never quite avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, today also brought word of an expanded recall effort. Previously, Ford had a recall up around some Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator vehicles released as part of model year 2021. Now, that recall has expanded to include some vehicles released in model year 2020 as well.
Specifically, these are vehicles produced between November 17, 2020 and December 1, 2020. The recall covers a potential fire hazard that could occur in the battery junction box’s printed circuit board. The board could produce a short circuit, overheat, and catch fire. Worse yet, this fire could happen even when the vehicle is parked and shut off. Dealers will, as usual, be called upon to perform inspections and any relevant fixes.
Is Ford Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on F stock based on three Buys, eight Holds and three Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 7.27% rally in its share price over the past year, the average F price target of $10.77 per share implies 8.26% downside risk.
