Passengers looking for a ride to their destinations could eventually get picked up by an autonomous Ford.
Ford representatives recently announced that the American car company is expanding its autonomous vehicle development sector and plans to offer autonomous ride sharing vehicles starting in 2021.
The new vehicles will come equipped without a steering wheel or gas and brake pedals and would cater to commercial ride hailing or ride sharing services. The autonomous cars are also part of the Ford Smart Mobility, which also includes areas such as connectivity, mobility, customer experience and data and analytics.
To build on its autonomous sector, Ford is investing in four companies – Velodyne, a Silicon Valley-based leader in LiDAR sensors; SAIPS, an Israeli-based computer vision and machine learning company that specializes in artificial intelligence; Nirenberg Neurosciences LLC, a navigation company; and Civil Maps, a California-based company specializing in 3D mapping.
In addition, Ford is expanding its Silicon Valley operations by creating a dedicated Palo Alto campus and expanding its current operations.
“Ford has been developing and testing autonomous vehicles for more than 10 years,” said Raj Nair, Ford executive vice president, Global Product Development, and chief technical officer. “We have a strategic advantage because of our ability to combine the software and sensing technology with the sophisticated engineering necessary to manufacture high-quality vehicles. That is what it takes to make autonomous vehicles a reality for millions of people around the world.”
As a way to continue testing and development, Ford officials said the company will triple its autonomous vehicle test fleet this year and will have about 30 autonomous Fusion Hybrid sedans on the roads in California, Arizona and Michigan. Ford plans to triple that next year as well and be the largest test fleet of any automaker.
Check out this related TFLcar video review of the 2017 Ford Fusion Platinum, which still needs a driver:
