(I’m looking at you, press release writers.)
On the other hand, some technologies really are revolutionary: steam engines, the Internet and now, autonomous vehicles. If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the history, technology and ethics of driverless cars, now’s as good a time as any to get caught up.
If you’re looking for evidence that all this self-driving car talk is more than just hype, consider this: almost every major automaker is developing autonomous vehicle technology. Clearly, there must be something to this idea, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing the likes of Toyota pour $1 billion USD into its Silicon Valley research unit.
Similarly, Ford has been making its own major investments, such as the $1-billion deal made with Argo AI earlier this year. More recently, the company’s EVP for Global Markets, Jim Farley, took to Medium to share Ford’s vision for self-driving vehicles. Specifically, Farley cited four core aspects:
- Commercial Grade
- Hybrid-Electric
- Purposeful Design
- Safety Integration
Although the details on each individual aspect are relatively sparse, two in particular offer a tantalizing vision of our driverless future. Regarding the first, Farley notes that Ford’s commercial vehicles—such as the Crown Victoria—are designed and built for heavy-duty, high mileage operations. “[O]ur self-driving vehicle will have upgraded components such as brakes, wheels and body structures that can withstand more extreme work cycles…” he wrote.
This suggests that Ford is embracing the idea that autonomous vehicles will effectively end private car ownership. Indeed, the company is aiming to put self-driving cars into ride-hailing service by 2021.
Consider two simple statistics from the U.S. State Department: 95 percent of American households own a car and 85 percent of Americans get to work by car. Now, imagine what would happen to those statistics if Americans had the option of being picked up and dropped off from door to door. In all likelihood, this would significantly curb demand for consumer vehicles, but we’d still need the auto industry in any case. So, if ride-sharing is the wave of the future, it’s prudent for Ford to try and ride it.
However, as Farley points out, autonomous hybrid-electric vehicles could handle the extra power requirements from self-driving sensors and computing systems without losing mileage, giving them a longer range than their electric (but still autonomous) counter-parts.
Farley concludes his article with a teaser for 2018: “Next year will be an important time for us as we begin to test both our self-driving technology and business model in a variety of pilot programs in the first city in which we plan to operate an autonomous vehicle business.”
At the time of writing, it’s still unclear which city Farley is referring to, but Reuters is reporting that Ford will be shifting production of an unspecified EV to Mexico to free up capacity at its Flat Rock, Mich. plant to build autonomous vehicles. The company is also increasing its investment in the plant by $200 million USD and adding 850 jobs. Flat Rock is roughly equidistant to Toledo, Ohio and Detroit, Mich., so perhaps citizens of those cities should keep their eyes out for unoccupied Fords on the roads in 2018.
Where do you think Ford will start testing its autonomous vehicles? San Francisco? New York?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.