What is Lincoln ActiveGlide and How Does It Work?

In the coming weeks and months, ActiveGlide, the hands-free driving system from Lincoln, will begin to hit public roads. The semi-automated technology is debuting on the refreshed 2022 Navigator three-row SUV, and Lincoln estimates that 90% of all Navigators will come equipped with the feature.

But how does it work? After all, if your brand-new, three-ton $100,000 SUV includes a feature that allows you to take your hands off the wheel, you'd better have an answer to that question. What we found, during a recent turn in the driver's seat, is that ActiveGlide unsurprisingly shares a lot in common with BlueCruise, a similar system currently working in select Ford vehicles — with some key differences. Here's what it's like on the road.

Prepping the Navigator for ActiveGlide

Step one is to turn on adaptive cruise control by pressing the cruise control button on the left side of the steering wheel. Then, press the up and down buttons to set and adjust your desired speed. At this point you've activated adaptive cruise, which Lincoln calls Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop-and-Go. You'll know it's on when you see the animated blue Navigator icon appear in the digital driver display with — and here's the key — a blue icon showing hands placed on the steering wheel.

But the whole point of ActiveGlide is taking your hands off the wheel. Here's how that part works.

Going hands-free

If you're already driving in a designated Hands-Free Blue Zone — Lincoln says more than 130,000 miles of highway across the country are in such zones — then adaptive cruise control turns to ActiveGlide automatically. There's no additional step you need to take.

How do you know that ActiveGlide is, well, active? That blue animation in front of the driver changes. It now issues an alert that hands-free driving is enabled, and the steering wheel is shown without any hands on the wheel. (An icon also appears in the head-up display projected onto the windshield.) At this point you can remove your hands from the wheel, and ActiveGlide takes control. It keeps the vehicle straight, makes minor steering adjustments as needed, and turns around sweeping corners at highway speed. It can also continue working down to a stop and pick up again automatically when traffic starts moving.