Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive, says that while Google’s Waymo division and Tesla have made a lot of progress with self-driving cars, Waymo is better for one primary reason: LIDAR.
Mr Farley had a long chat on stage at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week with celebrity biographer Walter Isaacson. The two discussed a broad range of topics, including autonomous driving.
The Ford CEO confirmed he has been in discussions with Tesla CEO Elon Musk about self-driving technology, but wouldn’t elaborate. In 2023 Mr Musk announced Tesla was looking to licence Autopilot and Full Self Driving to other companies.
He later claimed Tesla was in discussions with one legacy car maker, but so far no-one has signed a deal. And it doesn’t look like Ford will break that duck.
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When asked whether Waymo or Tesla’s autonomous driving system made more sense, Mr Farley picked Waymo without a pause.
Noting Ford has to “to be really careful” with new safety technology such as this, he believes “LIDAR is mission critical” for autonomous driving as it continues to work even when cameras are blinded by the sun, reflections or other events.
The Waymo project began way back in 2004, and currently uses cars kitted out with a bevy expensive LIDAR, radar and camera equipment. The division operates autonomous taxi services to the public in several Californian cities, as well as Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta and Miami.
Tesla, on the other hand, has, at the behest of its CEO, eschewed LIDAR on cost grounds. Late last month the company began limited Robotaxi services, primarily for influencers and fans, in a small area of Austin.
There have been a few recorded incidences of driving on the wrong side of the road, and not adhering to speed limits, but no major incidents have occurred.
In 2017 Ford invested heavily in self-driving technology by buying startup firm Argo AI, and hoped to have Level 4 self-driving technology “broadly to market” by 2021.
Despite investing over US$1 billion (A$1.5 billion) in the venture, and bringing Volkswagen in as investor, Argo AI was shut down in 2022.
Mr Farley still believes self-driving technology will be a reality, but says for Ford it will come as part of a “partnership model”.
He also wonders “how much autonomy is the right level of autonomy before we start losing the basic skills of awareness in a car” because “driving cars is a life or death scenario”.
Right now, though, the automaker is concentrating on its Level 2 BlueCruise system, which allows for hands-off driving but only on grade separated highways across North America.
MORE: Everything Ford