Like many major car companies, Ford has heavily invested in self-driving car technology and it plans to launch a network backed by its fleet of autonomous cars in the near future. Ford has said that it plans to launch its self-driving car network in 2021 and that it’s going to make a purpose-built vehicle for that network. The company has said that it’s going to launch its service “at scale” in 2021.
It certainly won’t be the only self-driving car service on the road as there are others already, however, they’re largely limited to select areas in certain cities. Ford doesn’t want to do things that way. Ford executive Jim Farley revealed to the Financial Times that the company will be launching its self-driving network at scale in 2021.
Ford recently launched a pilot program for its self-driving cars in Miami and Farley says that this was done to ensure that the company is capable of launching the service at scale by 2021. The pilot program will provide it with valuable data that it needs to meet the 2021 goal that it has set.
The company won’t be partnering with others for this service, such as ride-hailing services like Lyft, even though it does have a self-driving partnership with that company. The fleet will entirely be owned by Ford.
Whether or not the company will be able to meet its aim of launching the service at scale by 2021 remains to be seen.
Filed in . Read more about Ford and Self-Driving Cars.