Automated Driverless Car: Ford Announces Commercial Production for 2021
No Steering Wheels and Pedals
Ford Motor Co plans to sell a fully automated driverless car in 2021 Reuters reported on Tuesday. The car does not have any steering wheels or pedals.
Ford wants to create a fully realized self-driving car that can forgo any manual human intervention to steer the vehicle and be only directed by artificial intelligence software.
Unfortunate Death
The issue behind a semi autonomous car, which still requires drivers to hold the steering wheel and press the gas pedal, came under international spotlight when a TESLA test driver died in May using the car's autopilot system. The autopilot mode of the car requires the driver to hold the wheel, but the TESLA test driver apparently had his hands off at the time of his death.
Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields told Reuters that "We abandoned the stepping-stone approach because there are too many risks involved in the safe "hand-over" of driving responsibility between car and driver."
Ride-Sharing Business
Ford's is aiming to sell its driverless car to the commercial ride-sharing business which is currently lead by Uber and Lyft in the US and Didi in China.
Ford is aiming to dominate the market ahead of General Motors and Uber Technologies, both of which are developing self-driving cars for ride sharing purposes.
Ford chose to sell its driverless cars using a ride-sharing business model because the company deems that it can make cars easier on the pocket and quicker to mass manufacture.
Raj Nair, Ford's Chief Technical Officer said that the company will probably sell driverless cars without any steering wheel or pedals to individual consumers for private use around 2025.
War Chest and Investments
Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields said that the company is unleashing Ford's war chest in its investments in driverless technology in Silicon Valley which will increase its research and development in semi-autonomous hardware and software by three fold, and make its research lab in Palo Alto twice its current size.
Ford is focused on providing quality vehicles and is unperturbed by its rivals especially General Motors which invested $500 million dollars in the ride sharing business of Lyft last January this year.
