How is Ford planning to bring those solutions to reality?
We do realize Ford cannot do this alone but we believe we can play a big part in it. Based on that, we have near, mid and long term vision and plans for the realization of these solutions. In our short-term plan, we are going to continue to develop in-vehicle technologies that make the driving experience safer and reduce the effort that the driver needs. We already have technologies like automatic gearboxes, active parking, active cruise control for the same and we will continue to develop more such technologies.
The midterm plan is to enable more information and communication between the vehicles. To make vehicles smarter, we need more information to enable smooth communication between the vehicles. If vehicles can communicate themselves, then they will be able to access many possible outcomes much before the humans and this will lead to safer environments. So in our midterm plans, we are focusing on how we are going to bring the vehicle-to-vehicle communication to those levels. Also, there needs to be collaboration between various automobile brands to realize these technologies.
The long term includes is where we see almost everything is connected. We have already seen smarter home appliances that can connect with your smartphones. This will lead to a time where the data that such devices see, listen and sense can be stored in a cloud system and processed for a much smarter mobility solutions. And the way driverless cars will become a reality is when you have all the information needed and a way to make them communicate with one another with the information.