Ford eyes autonomous car with no steering wheel, pedals by 2021

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ford plans to build a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals by 2021, the company announced Tuesday, August 16. The vehicle will be aimed at ride-hailing and ride-sharing fleets, The Verge reports.

To get there, Ford is working with a number of startups, including a new investment in Velodyne, a firm that makes LIDAR sensors; the acquisition of SAIPS, an Israeli company that makes computer vision and machine learning software; an exclusive licensing agreement with "virtual retina" technology company Nirenberg Neuroscience, LLC; and a previously announced investment in 3D-mapping company Civil Maps.

The company is also expanding its research and innovation center in Palo Alto and plans to double the size of its team there by the end of next year.

Ford executives said the company wasn’t at the stage where it could show a vehicle, or even talk about what that vehicle might look like. Instead, it’s focused on getting the hardware and software ready for a driverless car.

The goal is to build a vehicle to the SAE Level 4 standard of automation. This would give the car the ability to handle all aspects of driving, although limited to certain approved areas or regions.

Over the next five years, in addition to working out the software and hardware, Ford and the rest of the industry will need to get governments to write regulations allowing them to offer these cars at all. Ford, Google, and Uber joined forces earlier this year to form an autonomous car lobbying group, The Verge says.

Ford plans to sell the cars initially to ride-sharing services, presumably like Uber and Lyft, though Ford demurred when I asked about any potential partners. It also declined to say if it was considering the launch of its own ride-hailing service.