Ford has announced it will begin making fully autonomous self-driving cars for the mass markets by 2021.
The plan has been confirmed by Ford’s president Mark Fields during an event in Palo Alto, California. Here, Ford has a research centre which it will now double its investment towards. More investments will also be made towards technology companies dedicated to the autonomous car industry.
Ford also says that its mass-produced autonomous cars will have no steering wheel and will likely be used for an Uber-style car-share scheme, instead of just selling them to private motorists. That essentially means that customers will hail an autonomous Ford to ride in when they require transport, and the cars can be shared between different users every day.
At the moment, Ford has a fleet of 30 self-driving Fusion Hybrid cars (or Mondeo Hybrid as we call them in the UK), which have been tested for research on roads in California, Michigan and Arizona. That fleet is expected to double in size next year as Ford move closer towards fully embracing autonomous vehicles.
Ford’s self-driving car technology relies on radar technology, cameras, and LiDAR sensors. The latter fires out 2.8 million laser pulses a second to precisely scan the surrounding environment and pinpoint the car’s exact location in real time.
Earlier this year, Ford demonstrated the potential of its self-driving cars by getting one of its models to complete a route in the pitch-black at night time.
