Ford to invest $75M in autonomous vehicle sensor company

According to Ford, the vehicle will not need a steering wheel or gas or brake pedals.

Ford’s approach to the autonomous vehicle breaks from many other companies, like Mercedes-Benz and Tesla Motors, which plan to gradually add self-driving capability to traditional cars. Ford would not say whether it will build its own ride-hailing platform or partner with established companies like Uber and Lyft.

“Ford is going to be mass-producing vehicles with full autonomy in five years”, CEO Mark Fields said at an event in Silicon Valley that was broadcast online.

This Fusion is one of Ford’s early autonomous test cars. Morgan Hill, California-based Velodyne said the money will help it improve design and expand production, making the sensors more affordable for mass adoption.

Ford is expediting its race to hit the self-imposed deadline by investing millions into the project.

Ford is expanding autonomous-car development as it chases Alphabet Inc.’s Google self-driving auto project as well as efforts by General Motors Co. and other automakers. The Blue Oval also acquired SAIPS, a company that specializes in computer vision and machine learning.

Ford was already a leader among the major carmakers in autonomous research, but still, today’s announcement is a radical stance once reserved only for Google’s self-driving cars. “We have a lot of options and business models that we’re working through”. For that reason, Nair said he believes autonomous cars for personal use have “economics that don’t make sense”, but driverless ride sharing does. There were more than 35,000 traffic fatalities in the United States previous year, and 94% of those accidents were caused by human error, according to federal safety regulators.

Mr. Nair also said Ford, unlike many of its competitors, has no plans to offer highly automated, but incremental systems that would still require drivers to take the wheel.

Other hurdles also remain.

“The companies are putting up $150 million to fund a supplier of laser sensors, which can help self-driving cars navigate”. He believes strict rules on emerging technologies could place a ceiling on emerging self-driving vehicle technologies.

Confusingly, the SAE is pushing a slightly different classifications system than the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Velodyne says that lower costs will allow the sensors to be used in all vehicles to make roads safer.