Rivian R1S.
Rivian and Ford Motor Company last Friday announced that Alexandra Ford English – Executive Ford Chairman Bill Ford’s daughter – will join Rivian’s board of directors effective immediately. English is director of Corporate Strategy for Ford Motor Company, responsible for the company’s enterprise strategy, connectivity, and digital network strategy – a highly risky “bet the company” business plan. (Ford Motor Posts -$2 Billion Q1 Loss, Rivian Gets $500 Million for New Ford Battery Electric Vehicle)
The announcement comes at crucial point for Ford Motor as analysts are speculating that future of a challenged Ford – operational competence, liquidity, as well as quality and warranty issues – will require a merger with another global automaker, perhaps Volkswagen. (Bill Ford has been quoted – second hand – by insiders as saying “No.” Then after a pause “Hell No.”) Continue reading
Multi-Seasonal Self-Driving Data Issued by Ford
Key here is quantity.
When a self-driving vehicle is operating, it is gathering information about the world around it. Cameras and LiDAR help it identify vehicles, pedestrians, signs and, hopefully, anything else that might be out in or near the streets. Radar helps the vehicle keep track of how fast things are moving around it.
“Without all this data, self-driving cars wouldn’t even be able to leave a parking lot,” says Tony Lockwood, Autonomous Vehicle Manager, Virtual Driver Systems, Ford Motor Company. He observes that these vehicles need to process a constant stream of information to “safely navigate” their surroundings.
Leaving aside for the moment giant unresolved privacy issues and how companies can sell your personal information their benefit not yours, data is needed to help engineers and researchers create software that can teach self-driving vehicles how to analyze their environments. This software used to be called the driver.
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