‘Driver Not Required’ by 2021, Ford Says

Ford plans to put a fully autonomous driverless car on public roads by 2021, initially for use by ride-sharing and ride-hailing services, but eventually for use by the general public.

“Ford is going to be mass-producing vehicles with full autonomy in five years – driver not required,” Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO tells a Silicon Valley audience today.

“The next decade will be defined by automation of the automobile, and we see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago,” Fields says. “We’re dedicated to putting on the road an autonomous vehicle that can improve safety and solve social and environmental challenges for millions of people – not just those who can afford luxury vehicles.

“We see the autonomous car changing the way the world moves once again.”

Fields says removing driver error responsible for a large percentage of the 30,000 motor-vehicle deaths annually in the U.S. is a major factor in Ford’s push to autonomy. He also envisions providing mobility to the elderly, disabled and young people, as well as those who simply don’t want to drive.

Ford had planned to follow a conservative route to autonomy, slowly increasing the capabilities of driver-assistance systems to handle more and more driving functions until SAE Level 4 autonomy could be achieved, says Raj Nair, Ford executive vice president-global product development and chief technical officer.

Level 4 automated systems handle all aspects of driving without human intervention – a vehicle with no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedals. Level 3 systems allow shifting back and forth between autonomy and active driving. Current systems offer Level 1 or 2 assistance, requiring the driver’s active engagement at all times.

Four years ago, Ford was taking the slower route, Nair says, but now the company is leaving out the middle level and making the leap from current driver-assistance systems directly to Level 4 highly autonomous systems to remove driver interaction from the equation.

Ford plans to introduce its highly autonomous vehicles in volume first for commercial ride-sharing and ride-hailing services, with personal use of autonomous vehicles coming several years later as costs come down, Nair says.

Ford’s efforts in autonomous vehicles date back to its involvement in the 2005 DARPA Challenge when the Dearborn automaker was the only participating car company.

“Ford has been developing and testing autonomous vehicles for more than 10 years,” Nair says. “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.”

This year, Ford will triple its autonomous-vehicle test fleet to 30 self-driving Fusion Hybrid sedans on the roads in California, Arizona and Michigan, with plans to triple it again next year, Nair says.

Ford’s Global Autonomous Vehicle Partners

In Palo Alto, CA, site of the announcement, Ford will create an expanded campus for autonomous vehicle development and plans to double its staff of 130 researchers, engineers and scientists there in the coming year.

To bring the autonomous car to reality, Ford is collaborating with four partners: Velodyne, a Silicon Valley-based producer of light detection and ranging sensors Nair describes as the “world’s LIDAR leader;” SAIPS, a Israel-based artificial intelligence and enhanced computer vision company; Nirenberg Neuroscience, a machine-vision firm founded by Sheila Nirenberg whose work in understanding the neural code used to transmit visual information to the brain has allowed her to restore sight to people with degenerative retina diseases; and Civil Maps, a Berkeley, CA. high-resolution 3D mapping company.

Earlier today, Reuters reported a $150 million investment by Ford and Chinese search-engine company Baidu in Velodyne.

Those relationships build on Ford’s $182 million investment in May in Pivotal, a Silicon Valley-based software developer of a leading cloud-based computing platform.

Fields says creating autonomous vehicles will be good for Ford as the producer of those vehicles and for Ford’s future business with partners that will be engaged in using those vehicles.

“The autonomous vehicle is the next natural step for us,” Fields says. “This is a transformational moment for Ford and we are super-energized by this.”

[email protected] @bobgritzinger