What is Ford’s Co-Pilot360 system? | McLarty Daniel Ford

Lots of folks get nostalgic about how battleship tough cars and trucks used to be in the Good Ol’ Days, but the truth — revealed by any vintage photo of an auto accident before 1975 or so — is that vintage cars were pretty terrible at keeping people safe when the inevitable crash happened. Most cars didn’t even have seatbelts until 1968! That alone led to some serious highway carnage back in the day.

The good news is: from airbags to crumple zones to blind spot alerts, vehicles are better than ever at keeping the soft and squishy humans inside safe in a crash. The next evolution in safety is now reality with Ford’s Co-Pilot360. The most advanced collection of standard driver-assistance technologies of any brand, Ford Co-Pilot360 is not only designed to keep you safer, it’s a glimpse at the autonomous car future that’s coming soon to a dealership near you. Read on for more about this incredible tech from Ford.

Available starting this fall on the new 2019 Ford Edge and Ford Edge ST, with plans to make the package standard equipment on all Ford cars, SUVs and the F-150 within two years, Co-Pilot 360 is already a great package, and engineers plan to keep adding more safety tech to it as new methods become available, with the company prepared to spend $500 million in the next five years to develop new safety gear to help keep Ford customers safe. Here’s a list of what’s available in the first roll-out of the Co-Pilot360 system:

Automatic Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection: A nightmare for any driver is the scenario where a person on foot suddenly darts into the roadway and directly into the path of your vehicle. With automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, your car can sense an obstacle ahead, whether it’s a person or a car that’s suddenly stopped, and will trigger visual and audio alerts. If you don’t respond, the system automatically deploys the brakes to minimize a front-end collision. As part of Co-Pilot360, Ford plans to make the tech standard on 91 percent of new Ford vehicles sold in North America by 2020.

Blind Spot Information System: Also standard with Co-Pilot360, the BLIS system utilizes on-board radar to detect cars that might be motoring along in your blind spot on the highway, keeping you from inadvertently trying to make two 3,000 pound hunks of metal, glass and plastic occupy the same space at 60 miles per hour. The system uses an alert on the side mirror to warn you there might be a vehicle in your blind spot.

Cross Traffic Alert: Backing out of a parking spot in a crowded and busy parking lot is another major spot where a driver can get into trouble. Co-Pilot360s Cross Traffic Alert system utlizes the same radar as the BLIS system to detect and alert you to oncoming cars or pedestrians when your Ford is in reverse, potentially sparing you from a nasty fender-bender or worse.

Lane Keeping System: It only takes a moment of inattention to drift out of your lane and into other lanes of travel. In a multi-lane highway, this can result in crowding other drivers or a collision. On two-laners, it can result in a high-speed head on crash. Co-Pilot360’s Lane Keeping System helps lessen that possibly by alerting you if you’re drifting out of your lane with three functions: steering wheel vibration that alerts you that you’re moving out of your lane, physical steering torque that can nudge you back into the center of your lane while allowing you to be fully in control, and a driver alert system that constantly monitors you driving and provides visual and audio alerts if the system suspects you might be sleepy or otherwise impaired.

Whether it’s performance, entertainment, comfort or safety innovations like Co-Pilot360, Ford is always on the cutting edge of automotive technology, and that’s a big part of why we’re proud to sell the Blue Oval at McLarty Daniel Ford. If you’re in the market for a new Ford car, truck, SUV or van, stop by today at McLarty Daniel Ford and check out the hundreds of new Fords available on our lots, filled with the technology and safety features you’ve come to expect from one of America’s oldest car makers. Take a test drive, and then take home a new Ford with Co-Pilot360 driver assistance and safety technology soon. Like the old saying goes: the life you save may be your own.

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