By Mike Ramsey
Ford Motor Co. has assigned a senior engineer to run a
development program for autonomous vehicles, a move that takes the
technology from research to implementation.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based company announced the move at an event
Tuesday in Palo Alto, Calif., at its research center.
Randy Visintainer, a 29-year Ford engineer and researcher, will
run the global team.
Ford's Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields has said he believes
a fully autonomous vehicle will be ready by 2020, but that Ford
won't be first. Instead, Ford would wait until it could sell a
mass-market autonomous vehicle.
Ford, like other auto makers, has begun to put early stage
safety technology in its vehicles in the form of so-called "driver
assistance" features. These radar and sensor-enabled devices help
stop cars before they crash into another car or person, or warn
them if they are leaving their lane.
"During the next five years, we will move to migrate
driver-assist technologies across our product lineup to help make
our roads safer and continue to increase automated driving
capability," said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president, Global
Product Development.
Ford said it would bring a forward collision braking system to
at least one vehicle in the U.S. next year. These systems are
common today on luxury vehicles and becoming more common on
mass-market vehicles.
Unlike most of the other auto makers, Ford management has
expressed its interest in developing different business models,
including car-sharing and ride-sharing services. A move toward
autonomous vehicles for Ford could be a platform for driverless
livery vehicles for companies like Uber Technologies or for Ford
itself.
Write to Mike Ramsey at michael.ramsey@wsj.com
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