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Ford leader in autonomous vehicle technology


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I'm watching the live stream of today's Tech News Today podcast ( http://twit.tv/tnt), and they just interviewed Sam Abuelsamid from Navigant Research. Navigant just put out their assessment of autonomous vehicle technology, and they listed Ford as the leader. They showed screen shots of the report on the show, but I couldn't find a way to get the report without logging into Navigant's site, and I don't have an account there, so...

 

ETA: As of 7:45pm, the April 3rd edition (the one with this segment) of TNT hasn't been published as a podcast yet.

Edited by SoonerLS
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Thank you for sharing this information SoonerLS. Car and Driver reported of the 3 models that are most often used as autonomous test cars, 2 are Fords: Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ. http://blog.caranddriver.com/why-ford-lincoln-and-lexus-testers-rule-the-self-driving-roost/

 

The popularity of the Fusion is also all about hackability, said Bobby Hambrick, CEO of AutonomouStuff. He noted that Ford is almost unique in exploring collaborations with outside companies. “Ford worked with a small engineering firm we hired, to put together hardware [and] software to interface with the native system in the car. There are no other OEMs that are currently so open to work through third parties,” Hambrick said, “and we’ve talked to many of them.”
The Fusion also allows electronic drive-by-wire control of all the key driving functions without extra hardware. “A lot of cars [do this] nowadays, but most of them aren’t rated to be driven on the road—they’re only meant for self-parking or lane keeping,” Hambrick said. “Just hacking into a car doesn’t mean you’re doing it safely. The MKZ/Fusion is one of the rare ones that is continuously rated for full self-driving, so it won’t fail when you’re driving down the highway.”

 

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