Ford Creates New Mobility Services Subsidiary
GM also furthering efforts to straddle Detroit and Silicon Valley.
Ford and General Motors both made moves today in the battle for leadership in a world of car-sharing and autonomous vehicles.
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Ford announced today that it is creating a subsidiary focused on mobility services which will be run by former Steelcase CEO Jim Hackett who is stepping down as a member of Ford's board to be chairman of the new division. Ford Smart Mobility LLC will be based in Dearborn as well as Palo Alto where Ford has a presence with its new Research and Innovation Center. The announcement is an escalation of Ford's investment in future mobility solutions for a congested world that needs alternatives to the old model of building and selling as many vehicles as possible.
Ford Smart Mobility will design, build, grow, and invest in emerging mobility services that on the surface would seem to be at odds with Ford's business interests. But CEO Mark Fields wants the automaker to also be a leader in connectivity and autonomous vehicles which are the trends currently transforming the auto industry.
So far Wall Street has not rewarded Fields' initiatives, but Ford stock was up Friday morning on news of the new venture that is designed to compete like a startup company and develop and invest in mobility-related ventures.
Many feel General Motors is the more progressive of the Detroit-based automakers. And Ford's announcement comes on the same day that GM is buying Cruise Automation, a self-driving software startup in San Francisco. GM said Cruise Automation will operate as an independent unit within GM's new Autonomous Vehicle Development Team that was formed to fulfill CEO Mary Barra's edict that GM be a leader in autonomous vehicles. GM invested $500 million in Lyft as part of its plan to introduce a fleet of autonomous vehicles and will use self-driving Chevrolet Volts for employee use at its Warren Technical Center.
One thing GM, Ford, Tesla, Apple, Google and just about everyone who makes a car or hopes to, agrees on, it is that autonomous vehicles will be a reality faster than the public realizes. At Ford, Fields said the new Ford Smart Mobility subsidiary will help the automaker expand into mobility services where there are "significant growth opportunities."
"Our plan is to quickly become part of the growing transportation services market, which already accounts for $5.4 trillion in annual revenue. Jim Hackett is the right visionary leader - with extensive experience in business development and design - to take us into the mobility services business in the future," Fields said in a statement today.
The bigger picture foray into global mobility solutions is a passionate subject and goal for Executive Chairman Bill Ford. "Ensuring the freedom of mobility requires us to continually look beyond the needs of today and interpret what mobility will mean to future generations," Ford said.
Hackett will report to Fields and lead a team of business and technology leaders from inside and outside the company. "Transportation in the world today is on the cusp of a major revolution, and Ford plans to lead the way by changing the way the world moves through Ford Smart Mobility," said Hackett, who resigned from the board of directors March 10 to take on his new duties.
Ford's new innovation center in Palo Alto has been integral in more than 30 mobility experiments, a number of which have become pilot programs. GoDrive is a car-sharing program in London that guarantees parking at locations such as the airport. GoPark is another London project that helps drivers find a parking spot. In Dearborn, Dynamic Shuttle allows Ford employees to request rides to various parts of the sprawling campus in an Uber-like manner. On their smartphones, employees can see when the vehicle will arrive and how long it will take to reach the final destination so they can decide whether to accept the ride offer.
Ford is also experimenting with shared bike traffic information and mapping in California and is advancing its work into wearables such as watches that help people get around. And the new FordPass is a digital concierge to help people in their daily lives when it comes to locating a destination, parking, car sharing, bus schedules and of course, new vehicle information.
Alisa Priddle joined MotorTrend in 2016 as the Detroit Editor. A Canadian, she received her Bachelor of Journalism degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and has been a reporter for 40 years, most of it covering the auto industry because there is no more fascinating arena to cover. It has it all: the vehicles, the people, the plants, the competition, the drama. Alisa has had a wonderfully varied work history as a reporter for four daily newspapers including the Detroit Free Press where she was auto editor, and the Detroit News where she covered the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, as well as auto trade publication Wards, and two enthusiast magazines: Car & Driver and now MotorTrend. At MotorTrend Alisa is a judge for the MotorTrend Car, Truck, SUV and Person of the Year. She loves seeing a new model for the first time, driving it for the first time, and grilling executives for the stories behind them. In her spare time, she loves to swim, boat, sauna, and then jump into a cold lake or pile of snow.
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