Share to twitterPeter Rander, President of Argo AI; Bryan Barnett, Mayor of Rochester Hills, MI; and Jim Farley,In April 2019, Ford Motor Company announced a major realignment of its senior executive team with two distinct organizations reporting up to CEO Jim Hackett. The automaker’s global legacy business of designing, building and selling trucks, SUVs and now occasionally cars is now helmed by Joe Hinrichs, president, automotive.
“We're seeing more and more people use connectivity in their vehicle differently, the disruption of our industry in an exciting way, it’s really started now. I would say similar to maybe the first or second generation Prius. When the electrification started to come into our industry, it feels to me like the first generation Prius or the Escape Hybrid when some customers started just making different choices.
Ford has opted to go in a different direction from some of its competitors, avoiding businesses like car sharing. Instead, Ford is focusing on three very specific areas for now, micro-mobility, non-emergency medical transport and city solutions. Just about a year ago, Ford acquired e-scooter sharing company Spin and it has since grown to more than 40 cities and Ford claims it is the third-largest company in the segment.
“I guess if you look at Ford's business we're a very different car company, vehicle company, and our aspiration for mobility, our profile of the portfolio is really different than other companies. That's probably the main thing I would say. So much of our business happens in the city.
But not all of these vehicles will be automated immediately. In many cases, these services are transporting passengers from rural, suburban or exurban areas where automated vehicles may not be operating yet. What about automation? When Fields made the announcement, the community of companies actively involved in developing AV technology was growing at a rapid clip with tens or hundreds of millions of venture capital dollars flowing into startups. There was enormous optimism that large scale commercial deployments of AVs would be happening well before the end of the decade.
However, the pace of growth is likely to be somewhat smaller than the “high volume” business promised over three years ago.