Ford Increases Focus On Autonomous Vehicle Development

In a step that shows Ford is getting closer to putting autonomous cars on the road, the company is moving the development of its self-driving cars from the research lab to its advanced engineering operations. Although the automaker hasn’t given a timeline for when it expects to begin selling cars that can drive themselves, CEO Mark Fields has said in the past the auto industry will have a fully autonomous car on the road by 2020.

“For us, autonomous vehicles are about making the technology accessible to everyone, just as Henry Ford did with the automobile a century ago,” said Raj Nair, group vice president of global product development, from the company’s research lab in Palo Alto, California. “Our team is now working to make this technology feasible for production.”

Nair explained that moving Ford’s driverless car from being a research project to being an advanced engineering effort is an important step toward bringing a model to market. He says that the next and final development stage is establishing a product program with a specific on-sale date.

It’s an exciting time to watch as automakers race to develop self-driving cars and to adapt their business models to fit the changing definitions of mobility and transportation. Ford, for its part, has been developing autonomous cars while simultaneously offering new sport utility vehicles and pickups that are profitable now. As part of its self-driving car efforts, the company has appointed a director of autonomous vehicle development, Randy Visintainer, and created a global team to work on the advanced program.

“During the next five years, we will move to migrate driver-assist technologies across our product lineup to help make our roads safer and continue to increase automated driving capability,” said Nair in a statement.

Although CEO Mark Fields has said that he expects an automaker to invent a fully autonomous vehicle within five years, he’s not suggesting that the first one will be made by Ford. Instead, Fields says that the company has different priorities than some other automakers who are racing to be first to market.

“To be clear, our priority at Ford is not in making marketing claims or being in a race for the first autonomous car on the road,” Fields said in January. “Our priority is in making the first Ford autonomous vehicle accessible to the masses and truly enhancing our customers’ lives.”

Even though Ford is clearly increasing its focus on autonomous vehicle development, is the company lagging behind its rivals when it comes to self-driving technology?

GM, Volkswagen, Mercedes and Audi have all indicated their plans to come out with a semi-automated driving system in the next year and a half, and electric vehicle maker Tesla has indicated a similar plan. Perhaps Ford does appear to be behind these other automakers at this point, however, it’s difficult to be certain about the details of any of the timelines for sure. The one thing that’s clear is that there are many automakers who are working toward the eventual release of an autonomous car that consumers can purchase and use on public roads, and the auto industry is definitely watching to see who will be first.