Announcement from 2018:
“Much like Google X, the new Ford X team will be responsible for making sure the automaker isn't falling behind in transportation. It'll have responsibility things like the Ford X Accelerator, which will seek out and invest in possible transit options of which cars are just one single part.
It'll be led by Sunny Madra, who until now has been CEO of Autonomic. Ford is confirming today that it has bought the company, which developed what it calls a "Transportation Mobility Cloud" to link everything from connected vehicles and mass transportation options to smart cities, pedestrians, and different service providers in the mobility space. That, for example, could prove instrumental when adding ride-hailing driverless cars to existing transit options.”
And wait, there’s more:
“Ford's second acquisition of the day, meanwhile, is TransLoc. It's been working on demand-response technology, currently for city-owned "microtransit" like shuttle services and university safe-ride programs. For Ford, it means an existing portfolio of relationships with cities, not to mention an expertise in things like dynamic routing.
The rest of Ford's Smart Mobility company will be reorganized. A new Mobility Business Group will take the lead on commercial projects like Chariot and FordPass, as well as act as the next stage for projects successfully incubated by Ford X. It'll also be the home of Ford's autonomous vehicle businesses, which the company has said it expects to have up and running commercial ride-sharing within the next few years.”
Ford X / Ford Next has made a lot of promises, but has delivered NOTHING of value. The $10 BILLION spent on these non producers would have been better spent on quality engineering.
WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY?