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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday May 28 2017, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-not dept.

Ford Motor Co. this week tapped Jim Hackett—a former office furniture chief executive who has been running its ride- and vehicle-sharing division since March 2016—to assume leadership of the company.

Hackett's assignment: to transform the 114-year-old automaker from a company that designs and sells vehicles driven by their owners into one that makes autonomous vehicles (see "What to Know Before You Get In a Self-Driving Car"). He quickly got to work announcing a series of executive shifts, including the return of Sherif Marakby, who had left the car maker for Uber last year, to oversee Ford's self-driving and electric car businesses.

Today carmakers sell to individual drivers through an extensive network of dealers, which makes profits both selling and servicing cars. In a world of self-driving vehicles, individuals could stop buying cars, and instead use fleets owned and operated by a third party. Ford and its competitors could become the manufacturer and third-party owner, a seller of rides as well as vehicles.

Hackett, 62, lands the job right as the auto industry seems on the verge of a cyclical downturn in sales following six straight years of unit-sales increases, and following several years of poor stock performance for the company. Unlike the man he is replacing—Mark Fields, a 28-year Ford veteran who guided the automaker for less than three years—Hackett does not have a conventional résumé for an auto industry chief executive. He is best known for running Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Steelcase Inc., once a maker of desks and filing cabinets. He gained a reputation in Silicon Valley as a creative thinker skilled at leading comprehensive organizational change, and attracted the attention of Bill Ford Jr., the automaker's executive chairman. After Steelcase he spent 17 months as interim athletic director at the University of Michigan—where he had played football under the legendary Bo Schembechler—overhauling a struggling football program.

Wake me when they have self-driving bicycles.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @06:44PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @06:44PM (#516840)

    Doesn't matter what you or I want. What the big bucks are headed for is a "mobile office" and "mobile theater" where everyone in the self-driving car is subscribed to one or more SaaS plans, either work or entertainment related. They want all the money and they want it all the time, subscription plans for $$$/month is the name of the game now. They already started at work (internet-connected office suites) and at somewhat at home (cable cutters). Grabbing the income available from the time traveling while commuting or shopping is next.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 28 2017, @09:56PM

    It rather does if the self-driving cars don't sell for shit. Big companies have power because they have money because they're exceedingly good at not throwing money away on ideological nonsense.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @05:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @05:28PM (#517233)

    they want to control movement just as much as they want to brainwash and spy.