Autonomous Cars to Account for 1 in 10 Miles Traveled by 2030, Says Ford CEO

Ford sees autonomous vehicles accounting for one in 10 miles traveled in the U.S. by 2030, CEO Mark Fields told the company's Analyst Day conference Thursday at its Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters. Ford’s intent is to introduce a “Level 4" fully autonomous vehicle in 2021, Fields said. A Society of Automotive Engineers standard published in January 2014 defines Level 4 as “high automation” in a vehicle, meaning it will have an automated system capable of handling “all aspects” of driving tasks, “even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene.” The first Level 4 vehicle Ford introduces will be “specifically designed” for “commercial mobility services” such as ride-sharing and ride-hailing, and won’t have a steering wheel, brake pedal or gas pedal, said Raj Nair, chief technical officer. “I love driving, but I hate my commute,” he said. If he had the opportunity for a vehicle to pick him up from home every day and drive him to work in a manner that would be cheaper than personally owning a vehicle, “I would jump on it,” he said. “I think that’s true for a lot of our customers. And so this is why we think this could really be a game changing aspect of how personal mobility is viewed in the future.” Ford projects that autonomous vehicle sales could account for up to 20 percent of total vehicle sales by 2030, Nair said. “Couple that along with the opportunity of not just manufacturing and selling the vehicles, but participating in the transportation of the service opportunity, participating in the vehicle management as the service opportunity, you could see why this is such a large opportunity for Ford Motor Company.”