As the 17.5-foot 5,855-lb Lincoln Navigator ascended I-94 at 80 mph, both of my hands were fastened to a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Moments later, when the cheeseburgers were all gone, I asked my best friend Mark to pass me my fries. I’m living my best American life in a leather and wood-lined luxury car, letting it cruise confidently while I pay less attention.
Welcome to the future of driving.
The 2022 Lincoln Navigator refreshed was the automaker’s first model to receive Level 2 hands-free driving assistance system voiceover Activeglide It’s a rebranded version of Ford Bluecruise.
After spending a week cruising around town and experiencing the trails with family and friends, it’s clear that Activeglide is in its infancy and that will require an update to keep up with the competition.
Lincoln Activeglide
What is Lincoln Activeglide?
The Activeglide system delivers on Lincoln’s promise of hands-free driving, but it’s an assist system for the person in the driver’s seat and in charge — fries or not. The system will control throttle, brake and steering inputs at speeds up to 80 mph. In theory, it could, or should, be able to steer the car down the road for hours at a time both in traffic and while in a certain place. But it doesn’t make the Navigator a self-driving car.
Today, the system operates on 130,000 miles of divided highways that have been mapped by radar. It should not be used in construction areas. It will not work when there is cross traffic or unknown exit. And it has to ask for assistance when it finds a bend in the road is too much for it to handle safely.
2022 Lincoln Navigator
It is watching you carefully
Like GM’s Super Cruise system, the Activeglide has a driver’s attention monitor. The infrared camera system is attached to the steering column and monitors the driver’s eyes to make sure he is paying attention to the road.
During multiple testing sessions, it was clear that Lincoln (and later Ford) put on an extremely short leash with only 4 seconds allowed before the system required you to get back on the road. In the early days of Super Cruise, the leash was about the same length, but GM has loosened it up through numerous system updates that now allow the eyes to roam for more than twice that amount of time.
Lincoln Navigator exterior cameras attach to active safety systems to create a 360-degree view of the vehicle’s surroundings.
Hardware
To put it bluntly: Lincoln’s (and Ford’s) system is much simpler than General Motors’, and lacks many of the things that make GM’s system so impressive.
Activeglide relies on a forward facing camera mounted at the top of the windshield, five radar units around the outside of the vehicle, a GPS receiver (not the high definition GPS unit, an important detail), a vehicle controls (though not specifically Activeglide-specific), electric power steering, 4G modem and a driver-side camera.
There is no redundancy built into the hardware. Reason? Activeglide Chief Engineer Chris Billman told Engine Authority it is not required because the driver is redundant, and as such is expected to be always ready to take over the vehicle.
Map Lincoln Activeglide
The system relies on radar map data that is downloaded in its entirety once a quarter for vehicles (GM has over 200,000 miles and that number is coming soon). doubles to 400,000 miles of mapped roads). The entire data set exists on the vehicle at all times and is not fed to a cell-by-cell direct system like GM’s Super Cruise.
Lincoln Activeglide
Seamless to use
Lincoln set up Activeglide to be one of the most seamless and easy-to-use systems on the market. First, make sure adaptive cruise control and lane-centering with hands-free systems are enabled in the Driver Assistance settings on the 13.2-inch touchscreen infotainment system.
Then, when entering a freeway or entering a mapped area, a warning pops up in the 12.0-inch digital gauge cluster informing you that the vehicle is in the Activeglide zone. . Press the cruise control button and the system will take a moment to read the road, understand its surroundings and then the instrument cluster will turn blue with the Navigator image in the center and a series of dots continuously flows from there. An image of the steering wheel appears on the left and indicates that the vehicle is currently in hands-free mode.
2022 Lincoln Navigator
Limit
Activeglide and Navigator cannot accurately determine which lane the vehicle is in in certain situations. Without an HD GPS receiver, the hardware cannot identify vehicles going down a particular lane on the road. Relying on the camera to put the car on the road can only work when the camera can see the road. The camera can’t see through metal and cars, so when Navigating in the middle lane and with cars on either side, it doesn’t seem to really know it’s in the middle lane of the road. This presents a challenge in certain situations where the Navigator tries to read the lane markings at 70 km/h to keep the three-row SUV centered and in its lane. .
Like GM’s Super Cruise system, Lincoln Activeglide is not meant to operate in built-up areas. Unlike the GM system, though, it doesn’t seem to really know where the active construction sites are. No warning pops up and the system doesn’t shut itself down immediately. I turned it off manually for safety reasons.
Lincoln Activeglide
Acceleration is allowed with Activeglide, but I was told the system shuts down at more than 80 mph. I was able to get the system working at 81 mph, but only twice despite my best efforts. It won’t work at 82 mph. The Super Cruise will hit 85 mph and even maintain steering duty, even though it controls the throttle and brake back, up to 92 mph.
It also won’t work in tunnels. While GM’s Super Cruise system works in the tunnel by using some classic technology that Lincoln’s system says no. It will hand back control to the driver based on map data and the vehicle’s sensor readings when entering the tunnel, although it will suggest re-control when exiting the tunnel.
For now, the system won’t automatically perform lane changes, but that functionality “will be available soon,” according to Billman. Super yacht achieved this feature at the beginning of the year.
2022 Lincoln Navigator
Towing also won’t work, a new feature GM enabled with its system as it transitions from car to truck. Lincoln’s system says no. Once the trailer is hooked up and plugged into the Navigator, Activeglide will be disabled and won’t come back on until the trailer is removed from the vehicle. Billman would not comment on whether hands-free dragging will come with a future update to Activeglide.
Real-world difference compared to Super Cruise
When Activeglide works, it’s good. But the system isn’t great enough.
One key difference between the Activeglide and its competitor Super Cruise is how smoothly the GM system works and how far its situational readability is.
Activeglide can’t seem to pick a virtual centerline and keep the car on it 100% of the time. There is slight sway back and forth with the steering wheel for constant adjustment even when traveling in a straight line.
The system also doesn’t seem to sense traffic ahead as quickly as the Super Cruise, nor does it apply the brakes and throttle smoothly in stop-and-go traffic. The latter has been confirmed many times by my wife and daughter who suffer from motion sickness and constantly notify me (loudly) about when the safety systems that work are not working properly.
All of these problems stem from Navigator trying to process multiple surroundings in real time while heavily relying on the camera system. Throttle and brake problems could be rectified with an updated calibration if Lincoln chooses in the future.
Lincoln Activeglide
Stuck in attention loop
The attention monitor’s consistently short 4.0-second leash makes it one of the most alert devices on the market in terms of making sure the driver is paying attention to the road. The infrared camera was able to read my eyes through my polarized Ray-Ban sunglasses in most situations when moving without my hands, until the sun started to set and the system started to have problems detecting show my eyes through sunglasses.
Lincoln Activeglide
At the time, it seemed that the angle of the sun mixed with the reflection of the light on my sunglasses was causing problems for the camera system to see my eyes. Billman later told me that it is human nature to unintentionally start squinting when direct sunlight at certain angles hits the eye regardless of sunglasses. The body partially closes the eyelids to protect the eyes from the sun, and when this happens, the camera cannot see your eyes. Then kickdown in the system starts.
Lincoln Activeglide
The system threw a warning on the instrument cluster that I needed attention. But I did pay attention. It started flashing a red warning in the gauge cluster asking for my attention. Then, at more than 70 mph, the system started pressing the brakes repeatedly to get my attention, which it already has. The jolt of the steering wheel did nothing to tell the system that I was indeed alert and attentive. Turning off the system by disabling cruise control seems to be the only way to prevent this loop.
After waiting for a while, I re-registered the system, but a few minutes later the whole process started again. I gave up because our exit from the mapped highway was only a few miles away. We made it most of the way.
Billman told me that if the escalation continued, the system would completely stop Highway Navigation, but in its current state it would not turn on hazard lights or call 911.
Lincoln Activeglide
Second place
Lincoln is in second place, currently.
Activeglide is only the second truly hands-free driver assistance system sold in the US that operates at highway speeds. It is good and can completely operate in the right conditions to go for a long time without the driver needing to control the steering wheel. The system works best in the middle of nowhere on the open road.
But there are so many conditions that it is simply unprepared, such as certain bends, tunnels, while towing, and simply the ability to know the exact position of the vehicle in relation to it. to the surroundings on the road.
While the Activeglide is a complete step up after GM’s excellent Super Cruise system on the Escalade, it offers a serene glimpse into the future that will enable hands-free driving on the road in a luxurious leather lining. where fast food can be eaten with both hands, at full speed.
