Ford: Driverless Cars by 2021
August 17th, 2016Via: NBC:
Most major automakers — and a number of automotive start-ups — are racing to develop the first hands-free vehicles. Nissan, for one, hopes to have a fully autonomous car in production by 2020. But Ford says it will go a step beyond. It has announced plans to eliminate the driver entirely when it launches a new line of high-tech products in 2021.
“We believe autonomous vehicles, especially with the automation of the driver, will be a significant change, perhaps as significant as the moving assembly line,’ said Raj Nair, Ford’s director of global product planning.
Ford’s previous autonomous vehicle strategy has mirrored the broader industry approach: roll out a series of ever more sophisticated “driver assistance” systems until the technology permits drivers to completely take their hands off the wheel for extended periods of time. Until now, it was generally thought that fully driverless vehicles wouldn’t be ready for at least another decade, possibly not until sometime around 2030 or beyond.
But Ford shifted gears because, “We don’t think the path to true autonomy is through a step-by-step, incremental process,” Nair said during a telephone interview.
