Transportation to Mobilization: The Ford Transformation
The Changing Face of Transportation
Just over five years ago, Bill Ford, executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company and great-grandson of Henry Ford, led an earnest TED Talk conversation about the changing face of transportation. In this conversation, Ford enthusiasts and everyday drivers can catch a glimpse at the trajectory Ford plans to take. Ford examines the massive problems gridlocking pose in tomorrow's dense urban areas -- underscoring the 5+ hour commutes already occurring in fast-growing areas like Beijing -- and how that will impact our economic growth and ability to deliver necessary services like healthcare and food.
Ford's proposed solution?
"We are going to build smart cars, but we also need to build smart roads, smart parking, smart public transportation systems and more. We don't want to waste our time sitting in traffic, sitting at tollbooths or looking for parking spots. We need an integrated system that uses real time data to optimize personal mobility on a massive scale without hassle or compromises for travelers."
Five years later, consumers are starting to see the tangible impacts of this vision as Ford Motor Company rebrands itself as Ford Mobility Company.
In January, Ford made two exciting announcements about the notion of smart cars. For immediate benefits, the company entered a partnership with Amazon and the integration of their vehicles with Echo, the e-commerce giant's smart-home device. This allows drivers to request the device to remotely start the vehicle, check an electric car's charge, or to open the garage as the car turns into the neighborhood.
Ford also released more information about its development of the self-driving car, announcing they were putting 30 new autonomous test cars on the road in 2016 and a fully autonomous vehicle will be available to consumers by 2021.
City Solution Transportation Team Created
During its Investor Day in mid-September, the company disclosed it has created a new City Solution team to work with several of the major global cities to develop mobility solutions to solve those transportation problems Bill Ford noted half a decade ago. Furthermore, they have already selected the first city in which they will implement a unique problem-solving strategy: San Francisco.
The San Fransisco-Ford Motor Co. partnership involves the mobility company going beyond just vehicles to create more holistic transportation solutions. They are acquiring the city's crowd-sourced shuttle service Chariot and teaming up with bike-sharing provider Motivate. These two transportation alternatives will be linked to FordPass, the company's mobility service, and Amazon's Echo. Via one app members can be more knowledgeable about and gain greater control over their transportation choices to move faster and more efficiently in the manner the chairman expressed so many years ago.
The future of transportation is near.
To learn more about FordPass and Sync Connect found in current Ford vehicles, check out this tutorial. Or to see it in action, visit us today at Ford Country Las Vegas. You can also subscribe to our blog to stay up-to-date with Ford's latest technologies.
