How self-drive cars will transport us into the future

“Our long-term vision for Ford is not just about selling more cars — that is still very important. But our overall long-term vision is also about making people’s lives better by changing the way the world moves, just as our founder Henry Ford did more than 100 years ago.”

A sceptic might say that statement from Ford’s global president and chief executive Mark Fields at a press event in Germany in recent weeks sounds like a typical PR line when a manufacturer brings out a new car.

One could almost cue up in one’s mind the picture of a shiny new car with a bronzed family giving shiny-teethed smiles thanks to the new technology which will undoubtedly be the answer to all their prayers.

But Fields wasn’t just talking about a new dashboard on the family run-around. Because according to him, Ford is now not just a car company but also a “mobility company”.

Referencing a “mobility revolution”, he said the need is evident to address key areas such as congestion, emissions and road safety and so therefore the impetus needed to move from just owning vehicles to owning and sharing them.

And he backed up the comment with concrete plans for how his company intends to make drivers’ “lives better”, for example by shuttle services for mass transit of people throughout cities across the world.

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Fields claims that while the traditional car industry generates $2.3 trillion in revenue each year, transportation services generate $5.4 trillion. His company wants a part of that.

In order to drive this “mobility revolution”, Ford’s employees have become more innovative. Globally, they submitted the most patent applications in Ford’s history in 2016 — 8,000 new inventions over the course of the year. Among the patents was an invention for equipping autonomous vehicles with drones.

That word ‘autonomous’ — look it up in a dictionary and one sees definitions related to self-governance, independence and freedom.

But in the automotive world it is the holy grail of future motoring— creating vehicles that can essentially run and make decisions by themselves.

A world in which all individuals’ cars drive them from their front door to the shops or to work may not be far around the corner. Ford is planning to have ‘ride- sharing’ and ‘ride-hailing’ autonomous vehicles on the roads as soon as 2021.

According to the car giant, these commercial vehicles will be high-volume and “Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE) rated level 4 capable”.

To put that last part in context, ‘level 1 capable’ means it needs the human driver to do everything.

According to the SAE’s own — fairly jargon-filled — definitions, level 4 means “the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene”. It is just one step away from the car being able to do literally everything (driving-wise!) that a human driver could do.

Fields says the company has been researching and developing autonomous cars for the last 10 years.

Now, it is collaborating with four start-up companies specialising in areas such as light detection and radar systems, artificial intelligence and enhanced computer vision, 3D mapping.

“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,” said Fields. “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.”

While the commercial self-drive vehicles it intends to produce within four years will be built in its Flat Rock plant in Michigan, Ford has also confirmed it is to start testing autonomous vehicles on European roads this year. That is because it cannot simply be a case of taking a vehicle from the US market and putting it onto European roads.

The simplest of factors such as differing signs, narrower roads, even the regulations on this side of the Atlantic all mean significant product development are required. In the first instance, the testing in Europe will be done in Germany and Britain before expanding elsewhere.

While Ford believes it is driving the future of self-drive vehicles, in Europe at least, it would likely put a few noses out of joint if it were to claim it was ahead of the pack in terms of electric vehicles.

The company does appear determined to give a shock to its competitors though.

It has confirmed it is to invest $4.5 billion (€4.25billion) in ‘electified solutions’ by the end of this decade and introduce 13 new electric vehicles to its portfolio around the world.

Two of its most iconic vehicles in the US, the F-150 pick-up and the Mustang, are to come with hybrid versions — though I doubt the electric engine will be used in isolation when the latter is being used in its traditional role as a bad-ass movie car.

Ford says a plug-in hybrid Transit custom van will be available here in Europe later this year, while globally it will roll out a fully electric SUV with an expected range of at least 300 miles, comfortably more than many fully electric vehicles can currently offer their owners.

The SUV, which will also be manufactured in the Flat Rock plant, is expected to be on the roads by 2020.

Even the US police department will go a bit greener courtesy of Ford, thanks to two new, “pursuit-rated” hybrid police vehicles.

As many electric vehicle (EV) owners will likely have found over recent years, the joys of EV motoring wane significantly when there is no charging point nearby when the batteries are nearly empty.

Ford says it already has a memorandum of understanding in place with several other European car makers to create an ultra-fast charging network which, it says, is “projected to be significantly faster than the most powerful charging system deployed today”.

It has set an initial target of about 400 sites in Europe but by 2020, says consumers should have access to thousands of high-powered charging points.

The company says it is piloting wireless technology on company EVs in the US and Europe that would make recharging as easy as pulling into a parking spot so drivers never forget to fill-up. “Wireless recharging extends electric-only range for short distance commuters, even during quick stops,” it said.