Ford, the second largest automaker in the United States, announced: will bring a self-driving car to the market by 2021. To achieve this, it will double investments in its research center in the city and will also make purchases and investments in other companies involved in automatic driving.
The main objective of the operation, as declared by the president Mark Fields in a meeting in Palo Alto, is to offer a service somewhat similar to the ride sharing service proposed by Uber, with the difference that in the case of Ford there will be a driver. Fields said that in his opinion Ford's future is not only in the production and sale of cars to private individuals, but that, especially in cities, Ford will have to become a "service provider", such as a ride or car sharing service with self-driving cars.
2021 is a rather close date, especially if we consider where the other self-driving car makers have arrived. For example from this year Tesla has allowed its customers to download its “auto-pilot” for free which allows the car to reach a “level 2? of autonomy, i.e. the car drives itself, but the driver must always remain attentive and ready to take control of the car.
Ford instead intends to produce cars with a level 4 autonomy, i.e. capable of driving without any human intervention in a specific environment, a city in Ford's case. It's about the same goal that Google is aiming for, which has promised to deliver the first self-driving cars in 2020, a year ahead of Ford. But while Google-cars have been doing road tests for months now, Ford appears to be relatively behind in development. Will he have time to recover the gap?
