It’s 2016 and if Back To Future II was to be believed we should have hoverboards, self-microwaving pizza, and flying cars by now. Last year came and went without any of the hit film’s predictions coming true, unless you count the ill-fated “hoverboards” that proved to be little more than expensive fire hazards. While, we may have to wait a few more years for time travel and hoverboards that actually hover there is good news; Ford has been hard at work developing some futuristic technology of its own. No, we won’t be seeing an airborne version of the Bronco when it comes out, but there is some seriously cool tech headed your way thanks to the work Ford has been doing.
Self-Driving Cars
Ford has committed large amounts of resources to the development of autonomous vehicles and plans add an additional 20 self driving cars to its testing fleet by the end of 2016. In addition to the new vehicles, Ford has hired Silicon Valley executive Laura Merling to serve as vice president of Ford Smart Mobility, Ford’s autonomous vehicle division.
Although Ford’s immediate goal is to get autonomous vehicles on the road for ride-sharing and on-demand taxi services by 2021, Merling will be leading a separate effort to get this technology into the hands of everyday consumers.
No More Red Lights
Hiring Merling has not been Ford’s only investment in the realm of autonomous vehicles. The average driver spends two whole days a year waiting at red lights. That’s 48 hours a year you could enjoy already being at your destination or at the very least, moving towards it. Ford is working to make that dream a reality. Their new technology will communicate with drivers and let them know at which speed to travel in order to hit the next light when it’s green. In the unfortunate circumstance that you do end up at a red light, the system will let you know how long the wait will be.
Pedestrian Safety
If you’re reading this article and thinking to yourself that all this autonomous tech sure sounds dangerous to the average pedestrian you’d be… wrong! Ford is also developing a new driver assist technology that will use a combination of radar and video technology to determine if a pedestrian has crossed in front of the car, alert the driver, and hit the brakes if the driver fails to react. Better yet, the system will not rely on cloud infrastructure which can expose vulnerabilities in the car’s computer systems. Instead, this new system will be fully contained in the car and based on 500,000 miles of driving data collected by Ford using 12 test cars across 473 days of driving. Those 240 terabytes of information will provide the system with all the data it needs to safely and effectively help reduce pedestrian accidents. The system is already available on the 2017 Ford Fusion and will be available on more models in the future.
While the present isn’t as fun as 1980’s sci-fi adventures thought it would be, there is some pretty amazing tech headed our way in the near future. Some of it is already available on select 2017 models and you can be sure that it will only improve as time goes on. Perhaps one day we will have to add a second slogan so we will have “Built Ford Tough” and “Built Ford SMART.”
http://fortune.com/2016/10/27/ford-silicon-valley-hire/
https://www.inverse.com/article/22689-ford-pedestrian-protection-system