Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Ford is already deeply involved with these sorts of investments, but its portfolio is growing once again with an investment in a company building maps for self-driving cars.
Civil Maps' goal is to create a set of high definition maps that self-driving cars can use to navigate. The company takes data from Lidar and cameras and translates it into a format cars can understand. It prides itself on having a small data footprint, making it easier to transmit data to and from vehicles.
"Autonomous vehicles require a totally new kind of map," said Civil Maps CEO Sravan Puttagunta in a statement. "Civil Maps' scalable map generation process enables fully autonomous vehicles to drive like humans do -- identifying on-road and off-road features even when they might be missing, deteriorated or hidden from view and letting a car know what it can expect along its route."
The company received $6.6 million in seed funding from Ford and five other investors. Civil Maps isn't a large company, with just 16 employees on the payroll. Ford's other recent work with startups includes a $182.2 million investment in software company Pivotal, and its Ford Fusion sedan is the basis for an autonomous test car Uber has deployed in Pennsylvania.
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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
Ford Motor Company plans to substantially increase its investment in electric vehicles:
Ford Motor Co's plan to double its electrified vehicle spending is part of an investment tsunami in batteries and electric cars by global automakers that now totals $90 billion and is still growing, a Reuters analysis shows.
That money is pouring in to a tiny sector that amounts to less than 1 percent of the 90 million vehicles sold each year and where Elon Musk's Tesla Inc, with sales of only three models totaling just over 100,000 vehicles in 2017, was a dominant player.
[...] "We're all in," Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr said of the company's $11 billion investment, announced on Sunday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "The only question is, will the customers be there with us?"
[...] Investments in electrified vehicles announced to date include at least $19 billion by automakers in the United States, $21 billion in China and $52 billion in Germany.
Also at CNBC.
Related: Ford Pumps Cash Into Company Creating Maps for Self-Driving Cars
Ford Invests in Michigan's Autonomous Car Testing Grounds
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @08:20AM
Whose fault will it be when my self-driving car self-drives itself off a cliff while I'm playing Pokemon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @08:30AM
Nintendo
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 18 2016, @09:02AM
Sue your parents for raising an idiot.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @09:39AM
Can't sue, they'd kick me out of the basement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @05:52PM
I always blame it on Team Rocket
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @04:31PM
The Ford Pinto. Just don't get rear-ended. Actually, those were pretty cool cars. You could throw on an Offy intake manifold with a Holley 4Bbl carb and turn them into instant racecars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @06:24PM
Perhaps such road info should shared between all manufacturers. Otherwise, mistakes and hazards could go unreported to other makers.
I realize the competitive incentive may go down if sharing is required, but it also doesn't make economic sense for multiple companies to reinvent the data wheel. We are not talking about building TV's or towel holders, but car infrastructure where people can die if there are data gaps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2016, @07:18PM
Ford and GM share an automatic transmission (or two?) -- developed jointly, then tuned by the respective companies for different models. Most likely car hardware (which is mostly invisible to the customer) will be shared first.
Anything that looks like intellectual property or user interface might not be shared as freely?
(Score: 2) by Max Hyre on Tuesday July 26 2016, @05:17PM
Well, I can dream, can't I?