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from the google-not-the-only-game-in-town dept.
Ford Motor Co. is betting big on driverless cars by funneling money to a startup founded by former Google and Uber employees:
Ford Motor is betting $1 billion on the world's self-driving car future. The Detroit automaker announced Friday that it would allocate that sum over five years to a new autonomous car startup called Argo AI, which is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., and will have offices in Michigan and California. Ford's financial outlay is part of a continuing investment strategy anchored to transforming the car and truck seller into a mobility company with a hand in ride-hailing, ride-sharing and even bicycle rentals.
Argo AI was cofounded a few months ago by Google car project veteran Bryan Salesky and Uber engineer Peter Rander, who met while working at Carnegie Mellon University's vaunted robotics and engineering school. "The reason for the investment is not only to drive the delivery of our own autonomous vehicle by 2021, but also to deliver value to our shareholders by creating a software platform that can be licensed to others," Ford CEO Mark Fields told USA TODAY. "This move gets us the agility and speed of a startup combined with Ford's global scale." Salesky, a self-driving car hardware specialist who left Google's renamed Waymo car program last fall, said that he decided to start his own company with Rander because of "the incredible advancements in machine learning, artificial intelligence and computer vision, but we just needed a partner to get these cars into the hands of millions of people."
Also at Ford and The Detroit News.
Having a look at the previously published stories as well as this one, it appears that there is no more need for collaboration:
Google and Ford to Collaborate on Autonomous Vehicles
Google, Ford, Uber Launch Coalition to Further Self-Driving Cars
Ford Pumps Cash Into Company Creating Maps for Self-Driving Cars
Ford Will Pursue Fleet of Autonomous Cars by 2021
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Sunday February 12 2017, @03:12AM
Ford seems to realize that they are behind in autonomous travel and they need to catch up. I agree with that, but I doubt that buying a startup is the best way to go. I would prefer either developing it internally or licensing it from a supplier.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 12 2017, @02:00PM
Ford seems to realize that they are behind in autonomous travel and they need to catch up. I agree with that, but I doubt that buying a startup is the best way to go. I would prefer either developing it internally or licensing it from a supplier.
Developing it internally with what talent (while starting from behind)? Licensing it from what supplier? This strategy has failed many times before (and even under good situations, it tends to fail more often than succeed).
But one thing that Ford has going for it that the other major US car companies don't have (not counting what would otherwise be an important exception, Tesla, because it's smaller volume) is that the owners are still fairly involved in the company. Someone in the decision-making process has interest in making good decisions for the company as well as for themselves.
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday February 13 2017, @03:48AM
Buying a startup has an even worse record. Remember GM and Envia? You use the billion to buy talent rather than give it to a possible shyster to do it for you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 13 2017, @04:58AM
Buying a startup has an even worse record. Remember GM and Envia? You use the billion to buy talent rather than give it to a possible shyster to do it for you.
GM has an awful track record for doing such things in house. Well, for doing any sort of business really. Keep in mind that they've been bleeding market share [marketrealist.com] for more than 40 years (even with considerable US government support (for example, +53% federal government sales [seekingalpha.com] just before the election) over those years) to the point that Ford has almost caught up with them in the US market (and Toyota and Volkswagen slightly edge them out on the global markets). So I don't buy that their failure with Envia would be worse than an in-house failure (of which they have many). We're really measuring how big the splat is on the windshield with GM.
So sure, you might be right. But I think there are relevant conflict of interest differences with Ford that might make the difference here.