The competition
Google may be ahead of other auto manufacturers right now but that appears all set to change soon. Dearborn, the Michigan based automaker, is going to start testing the Ford Fusion Hybrid sedan in January in Palo Alto near its Research & Innovation Center. Employees at their factory have mushroomed from fifteen to over hundred in less than a year. During this time, Ford has gone from a small tech outpost to testing its autonomous cars on the streets.
Some other carmakers have approached the state to tackle this endeavor including Tesla, Daimler, BMW, Nissan, and Honda. California, like Florida, Nevada, and Michigan, is one of the only states which has allowed self-driving cars to be on public roads. Now if California could just do something about their illegal alien criminal problem which is the cousin to the sanctuary city problem that would be reassuring but that is another topic.
Ford Fusion Hybrid
The testing is initially going to be performed on a single Fusion Hybrid which is going to start mapping routes before it starts logging driverless miles during the second part of 2016. By that time, additional manufacturers may also get permit for autonomous testing.
The hybrid vehicles are also going to undergo testing at Mcity which is a mock town that has been dedicated for the research of autonomous cars near Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Aggressive approach
Ford has made it very clear that they are adopting an aggressive approach to self-driving technology just like Google. They have also started adding a number of driver assist functions to their existing automobiles. Google has said that they don't plan on manufacturing vehicles such as these though. They want to team up with an established automaker for this purpose. They have been testing their prototype vehicles for more than 6 years in California now and recently in Texas as well.
Competition
Mercedes Benz has also started dedicating resources to work on self-driving technology. They introduced their luxury in motion prototype at the CES in January 2015. Even Audi, BMW, Tesla, and a number of other manufacturers have also started focusing on driver assist technology which operates under the supervision of human drivers.
Even Uber appears to be working on self-driving cars after they hired quite a few engineers and researchers from Carnegie Mellon University. Rumors are also persisting regarding Apple trying to poach engineers from Tesla to being development of its own self driving car. As far as Ford is concerned, 80% of its staff growth in Palo Alto has been tech related. The rest of the staff have been transferred from various other areas in Ford's awesome ecosystem. Ford never received a bailout either, that is golden and that is a testament to their astute management.
The future
Ford is looking at doubling their collaborative experiments next year to thirteen and are even going to enter into partnership with transportation researchers from Stanford University.
Automotive manufacturers have said that self-driving technology will be ready by 2020 in all likelihood.
The future of autonomous, self-driving cars looks bright. The competition among leading car manufacturers and tech companies is heating up and it is going to be a mad rush to the finish line. Who is going to be the first to achieve this success? We'll just have to wait and see. We may not have to wait long though.
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