Baidu, China’s largest search engine, has also been active in self-driving vehicle research, with the June announcement that it would actively mass-produce driverless cars within five years and the attendant statement that testing had already begun in China. The two companies also worked together on R&D for “much of” Ford’s history with autonomous driving tech, according to Velodyne, which spans more than a decade.
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Mr Nair told the FT in an interview that Ford had chose to leap to full autonomy “because we have not found a technology that can ensure driver engagement [when not in control]”.
Ford chief technical officer Raj Nair said the company likely will not offer a similar driverless vehicle without steering wheel or pedals to consumers until 2025 or later. And before that happens, Ford is aiming to make a significant impact on the ride-sharing service ahead of other automakers.
Ford Motor Co.is accelerating its development of self-driving cars by more than doubling the size of its Silicon Valley lab and taking a stake in Velodyne Lidar Inc., the leading maker of an advanced radar that is an essential sensor in autonomous driving.
“We abandoned the stepping-stone approach of driver-assist technologies and decided we were going to take the full leap”, said Raj Nair, Ford’s chief technical officer.
“We’re dedicated to putting on the road an autonomous vehicle that can improve safety and solve social and environmental challenges for millions of people – not just those who can afford luxury vehicles”, said Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO. The company skipped Level 2 and Level 3 as it really wanted to make the driving experience fully automatic.
Baidu in April said it had established a self-driving vehicle team in nearby Sunnyvale, California, focusing on development of such enabling technologies as computer vision, robotics and machine learning.
More recently, ride-sharing service providers like Uber have raised the competitive concerns of the conventional auto industry.
Carmakers continue to look to the Valley for helping paving the way for the future of cars – Ford has teamed up with Baidu to jointly invest 0 million in Velodyne, a company making LiDAR sensors in California’s technology hotspot. Velodyne LiDAR sensors can also accommodate assisted driving, from Level 1 (basic systems autonomy with active driver control) to Level 4 (fully automated vehicles).
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GM and Lyft plan to have driverless vehicles operating in tests within a year. A future where in driver’s license will be obsolete and driving your auto manually is a crime, yes that is where we are heading. It also invested in Berkeley, California-based Civil Maps for its three-dimensional mapping capabilities.
