Ford’s New Autonomous Vehicle Business Only Works If It Builds Good Cars

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 8:29PM EST · Published Jul 25, 6:35AM EDT

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Ford’s New Autonomous Vehicle Business Only Works If It Builds Good Cars — © ford.com

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) has spun out its autonomous car division into something called “Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC.” The announcement did not give any concrete answers about how Ford intends to best dozens of autonomous vehicle divisions at major manufacturers, well-funded startups and some of the largest software companies in the world.

In the announcement Ford management said:

Ford creates Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC, which will encompass all aspects of its self-driving vehicle business operations, to accelerate its AV business and capitalize on market opportunities

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As it accelerates the integration and application of technology across its industrial system, Ford is realigning its Information Technology and global order to delivery teams under its Global Operations organization

Ford is embedding a deeper product-line focus across the company. The effort is anchored in human-centered design with product teams putting even greater emphasis on customer insights and market opportunities to deliver the products people love across global markets

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The comments are so complex that they need someone to interpret them.

Ford already has said:

By 2020, Ford will offer North America’s freshest lineup among all full-line automakers, with its average showroom age dropping from 5.7 to 3.3 years as it replaces three-quarters of its lineup and adds four new trucks and SUVs. Ford has similarly aggressive product refresh plans in other regions, including Europe and Asia.

While the goals may be met, Ford management cannot be certain that it will have the “freshest lineup” unless it knows the detailed plans of its rivals. The launch of Ford Autonomous Vehicles does not appear to improve its chance to reach that goal.

Ford has to contend with autonomous car work that ranges from Tesla to Alphabet’s highly successful Waymo operation to the rest of the 55 organizations approved to test autonomous cars in California, which is considered the state where the most advanced work is done. Ford has an army of competitors in the segment. The number two American car company cannot make the case it is better off than any of them. A new company won’t change that.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.