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The new CEO of Ford says the company isn’t taking its eyes off the present as it prepares for transportation in the future.
Jim Hackett, above, who replaced Mark Fields in May, says new mobility projects such as buying a shuttle company and the purchase of an artificial intelligence startup have not taken money from car and truck development.
He said that more new vehicles are in the pipeline. “We think dealers are really going to be happy with the vehicles we’ve got coming this year and what we’ve got in the hopper,” he said, without giving specifics.
Although people in cities have more transport choices such as ride-hailing services Uber, he predicted that personal car ownership will survive. People already own vehicles and prefer to drive them knowing that they aren’t used 90 per cent of the time, Mr Hackett said. “I’m not ready to admit that Ford is facing a world where it’s losing a lot of personal buyers,” he said. “But I would admit that they’re going to have a lot more options.”
The company is investing $1 billion in a budding robotics startup, Argo AI, to acquire more expertise for autonomous vehicles. Mr Hackett said spending on the future is small compared with how much Ford spends on car and truck development. And, he added, the company had to be at the forefront of helping cities deal with increased congestion from growing populations and increased package deliveries as vehicles fight over scarce curb space for parking. “All these things point to the need to harmonise and choreograph transportation,” he said.
