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Exclusive: the future of Ford, according to its bosses


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15 hours ago, jpd80 said:

From your lips to god’s ears.

EV, AV and connectivity have been so oversold 

that now, Ford thinks they’re the utter slam dunk,

just provide vehicles/ services, charge a fortune and whamo,

billions and billions of profits, right? 

Absolutely fool proof, can’t go wrong, ‘cause the boss says so


Oversold yes, but the small portion of the public electorate bought it and is pushing it. So now the group that doesn't own cars or even have a drivers licenses are in control of the message, I don't need a car or in most cases can't afford one so you shouldn't have one either. Point in time where technology is be damned; legislation to mandate them is coming. The People (Mob mentally of late) are demanding change so Politian's make laws that force corporations as they are evil, because  most Politian's don't have a useful education they need to keep their job, you do this by appealing to a small group that will vote for you in a primary and being that now districts very partisan they get elected in the general election and just repeat the cycle.  So you appeal to a very small but vocal and engaged group to keep your seat as you have to win the low voter turn out primary rather than the general election. 

It is going to be interesting in how this all plays out, small mainstream manufactures are having a huge issue with this as their buyers don't want to pay. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/09/03/subaru-other-small-carmakers-ev-mandates/2130087001/ What's going to be interesting is if they just pull out of some markets. Then the car buying public/dealer groups will demand their state change the laws when they can't get their preferred vehicle or dealerships start closing as they don't have product to sell.

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9 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

I will strongly disagree with you there. I think it's a VERY vocal minority. I think the majority of the global population at the very least doesn't care but most very wary of autonomous technology. 

 And that's why Ford was forced to change direction and pursue commercial AVs,

they were getting almost zero traction with retail buyers who remain skeptical of AV tech..

 

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3 hours ago, jpd80 said:

 And that's why Ford was forced to change direction and pursue commercial AVs,

they were getting almost zero traction with retail buyers who remain skeptical of AV tech..

 

 

Were they?  I thought they were always targeting the commercial use case.

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12 hours ago, akirby said:

 

Were they?  I thought they were always targeting the commercial use case.

 

I think they were always targeting commercial use, but that it seemed the "retail" side was intended to be a bigger slice of the pie until they retrenched and made the commercial AV the primary focus.  I personally think it's a good move.

Edited by rmc523
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On 9/7/2019 at 12:14 AM, rmc523 said:

 

I think they were always targeting commercial use, but that it seemed the "retail" side was intended to be a bigger slice of the pie until they retrenched and made the commercial AV the primary focus.  I personally think it's a good move.

 

Definitly cars under Fields, from 2016, before ride sharing ideas turned out to be not so good...


 

Quote

 

Ford’s Autonomous Fusion: A peek into the future

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/ford-autonomous-fusion-a-peek-into-the-future/2100001119/

by Tony Swan, Contributing Editor | September 15, 2016 9:45 AM

It’s clear that autonomous vehicles—vehicles capable of operating with no human intervention of any kind—are on the near horizon, with several carmakers citing specific debut goals. And Ford Motor is among the development leaders.

Speaking this week at a series of Ford seminars on future trends, CEO Mark Fields said “we believe the next decade will be defined by the development of autonomous vehicles.”

To that end Ford has been working on autonomous technology since participating in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) autonomous vehicle challenge events of 2005 and ’07.

 

Today Ford has a small fleet of autonomous Fusion hybrids circulating around in Dearborn, Michigan, as well as Arizona and California. The Arizona and California cars are testing on Ford proving grounds, but the Dearborn group is operating on public roads near the company’s sprawling properties in the vicinity of corporate world headquarters.

Ford’s stated objectives for the program: First, putting its Dearborn fleet into employee shuttle service in 2018; second, putting Ford autonomous cars into urban ride sharing fleet service in 2021; third, making autonomous cars available to the general public by 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by jpd80
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24 minutes ago, akirby said:

Test mules don’t equal production plans.

The plan has changed to Transit but the original goals for Autonomous Vehicles were very different....

 

This from 2016,

Quote

 

Ford’s stated objectives for the program:

First, putting its Dearborn fleet into employee shuttle service in 2018;

second, putting Ford autonomous cars into urban ride sharing fleet service in 2021;

third, making autonomous cars available to the general public by 2025.

 

 

 

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