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Ford’s CEO reveals the car of the future—yes, Amazon is involved

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Tesla might have made some major announcements recently, but Ford CEO Mark Fields says his company not in the race to make announcements. Instead, Ford is busy focusing on how to make customer’s lives easier and building the car of the future.

“Our combination is an auto and a mobility company, and we think that makes a lot of sense for us. But we’re not in a race to make announcements. We are in a race to do what’s right for our customers, and what’s right for our business,” Fields said.

In an interview at Ford’s research and innovation center in Palo Alto, CA on Thursday, Fields described to Jim Cramer what the car of the future will look like.

“What I am most excited about here is the innovation that is going on. The innovation is who we are as a business, going back to Henry Ford,” Fields said.

Starting in 2015, Ford began conducting experiments all over the world to learn more about what works for its customers. It is currently working on new technology that includes connected vehicles, internet of things and autonomous driving capabilities.

Ford also entered into a partnership with Amazon in January. The partnership will allow Ford’s technology to connect via the cloud for customers to now interact with their home from their car.

Fields described a world in which drivers can turn on the pot roast in their kitchen, turn on the lights at home, deactivate security alarms and open the garage door all from their car, using the platform of Amazon’s Echo-powered technology, Alexa.

Ford is also working to incorporate smart parking into its cars through a number of mobility experiments. Cars will be equipped with sensors to calculate the location that will most likely have a parking space and save customers time.

“In most cities, 30 percent of the wasted fuel is people looking for spots. So how do we be part of the solution, this mobility solution for customers, make the world better and offer us a business opportunity,” Fields said.

Written by Abigail Stevenson | Published on cnbc.com | Original article here…

Ford Joins IBM To Jump To The Future

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Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields is joining IBM as a board of director as the No. 2 U.S. automaker explores alternative mobility options beyond selling cars and trucks.

“Mark led the highly successful transformation of his company in a competitive industry where technology has driven innovation. He is leading Ford into a future where cars are not only vehicles, but increasingly becoming mobile technology platforms,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM’s chairman, president, and CEO.

Under Fields, Ford has looked at alternatives to traditional car ownership, including mergers and acquisitions and partnerships.

Ford and other automakers are increasingly focused on self-driving cars and the potentially disruptive influence autonomous cars may have on future car ownership. They face potential threats from new competitors from Silicon Valley. Ford is exploring alternatives like car-sharing and other options to meet future transportation needs.

Fields told Reuters earlier this month the automaker is exploring various options to boost its move into car-sharing, self-driving technology, and services built on staying connected with customers during the 900 or so hours a year they are behind the wheel.

The company has repeatedly declined to comment on reports that Ford is pursuing an alliance with Internet leader Alphabet Inc.’s Google to collaborate on the development of self-driving cars. Reuters reported in December that the companies have held talks and Fields met with Google co-founder Sergey Brin that same month to discuss the status of the talks.

Ford is pursuing its own efforts to develop autonomous driving technology and said earlier this month it would triple the size of its self-driving car test fleet to 30 vehicles.

Ford spokesman Mike Moran said “IBM is a global company with a rich history of innovation and disrupting its business model to deliver results – which is very complementary to what we are doing at Ford. Mark will bring unique insights to IBM, and his experience and new relationships serving on the IBM board will bring equal benefits back to Ford.”

If you are looking for a new, used, or certified pre-owned Ford vehicle, contact Lamarque Ford today!

Self-Driving Cars In the Works

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Self-driving vehicles are certainly not ready for the road just yet, but they are quickly getting there. So how long until we all have our own personal chauffeur vehicle? Business insider predicts 10 million self driving cars will be on the road by the year 2020. But are these vehicles ready for the hustle and bustle of rush hour traffic, the delicacy of school zones and the every so tricky decision to run through or stop short at a yellow light?

These automobiles are still in prototype phase, but don’t be disappointed, there may be cars in nearby neighborhoods with self driving features that have gone unrecognized, until now.

Parallel parking
Intelligent parking assist was first released to the public in 2003 and it quickly led to further innovations. The first system was designed to allow vehicles to parallel park themselves without any input from the driver, simply pull up to the desired parking spot and let parking assist do the rest. The success of this autonomous maneuvering feature inspired most major manufacturers to implement their own similar features into their vehicles. Parking assist can now park your car parallel, angled or perpendicular to the road. An unreleased program claims to have developed a fully automated parking assist that can be activated from a smartphone or smartwatch, allowing the driver to exit the vehicle and essentially valet park their own vehicle.

Blind spot recognition
Checking your blind spots is an essential of every day driving practice. This can make or break the success of your merging efforts, so what happens if you think your blind spot is empty and you try merging into someone else? This happens all too often, and luckily this problem has been addressed and solved. In 2007 the Blind Spot Information System was released to the public, it offered the ability to check the vehicle’s blind spots and use a small light indicator to inform the driver of a potential obstacle in the blind spot. This feature was taken a step further, and can now prevent the driver from merging lanes if the software detects an obstruction in the way. This automated feature has undoubtedly removed a significant amount of human error collisions.

Collision aversion
Blind spot collisions aren’t the only accidents vehicles can prevent automatically. Collision warning systems along with brake support have the ability to stop the car if the driver is unable to do so, or unaware of the surroundings. Sensors and monitors in vehicles have the ability to recognize if the car ahead of you has made a sudden stop or change in speed, the system can then alert the driver via audio and visual indicators, and even stop itself if the driver does not react. This has proven successful in reducing rear end collisions as well as back up collisions.

Although these autonomous vehicles have the ability to prevent some human error, they are not flawless and remain as test subjects. Having our own personal chauffeur vehicle may not be right around the corner, but our cars are beginning to drive themselves more and more with each new model release.