As Big As The Model T

Ford is spending BILLIONS to introduce a fleet of self-driving cars—even as drivers are still its BEST CUSTOMERS

- Fred Guterl

BUILDING CARS THAT CAN DRIVE THEMSELVES through busy downtown streets safely and efficiently is above all a staggering achievement in artificial intelligence, which is why tech companies were first off the mark to develop them. Traditional car manufacturers are now spending billions to catch up, hoping that their well-known brands will give them an edge. Ford, which plans to roll out a fleet of autonomous vehicles in 2021, ranked No. 1 in Newsweek’s survey of automobile brands (see page 36). We caught up with CEO Jim Hackett in Miami in November to talk about Ford and the future of transportation.

You’re now calling Ford a “mobility company.” What does that mean? Henry Ford brought us mobility. But for the first time in history, you’ve got the confluence of technology that will let the vehicle drive itself, the ability for the vehicles to communicate with each other and all talk to the cloud. The cities will also communicate with the cloud, which then connects with the vehicles in ways that actually help choreograph traffic.