Ford Trends Conference has come and gone almost a month now, but I wanted to share some of what I took away from the conference. Ford is doing so much more than just making cars and trucks. They are also working on their Smart Mobility Plan. The global population is growing by leaps and bounds. Our cities are becoming so congested and even here out in the burbs traffic is becoming more and more of a nightmare. Ford and many other companies are looking to how they can help with the congestion and looking to see what the cities of the future will look like when it comes to transportation.
One such way is Parking Spotter. It is taking technology that many cars are now being equipped with and using that to help locate a parking spot and to help reduce the time and gas it takes to park in big cities. Pair that with Remote Repositioning which works to create a more affordable and effective way to share or park vehicles through the use of a remote “valet”. Imagine pulling up to the building where you have a meeting and your vehicle being able to find a parking spot, park itself, then you being able to call your car back. Amazing!
With the technology that has come out recently from Driver assist technology(Blind Spot Warning) to semi-autonomous technology(Lane Keeping Aid), we are truly working toward full autonomous technology being a part of our driving world in the very near future and having cars on the road that are fully autonomous will be a reality faster than we probably think.
Another part of the Ford Trends conversation is how Generation Z is shaping the future of the world we live in. This brings about the conversation of how they are more likely to want to rent out their cars and other belongings to make money. AirBnB is an example. The younger generation is also more open to sharing rides with others. I for one have started using Uber on some of my trips and one part of that is you can use UberPool to save money on your ride by sharing it with others who are going in a similar direction. I have only used a single person ride since I wasn’t exactly comfortable of riding with people I didn’t know, but to save money it might be smart.
I have already been blown away by Ford’s parking assist feature. When you see a big F-150 park itself, just wow. Ford wants to take that technology further with not only parallel parking assist, but perpendicular park assist, parallel park out assist(sure it got you in to the parallel parking spot, but it will soon be able to get you out as well) to fully assisted parking aid.
One last item I want to touch on is eBikes. The Ford MoDe:Pro and MoDe:Me bikes are changing the way people can travel throughout a city and is huge in the delivery market. A person could drive in to the outskirts of a city in their Ford Transit. They could then take out their eBike which will show them navigation routes, delivery planing, and rider tracking. When deliveries are done, the rider can pack up their eBike in the Transit, charge it, and go about the rest of their day. It makes it a new way for companies to be able to deliver in a busy city in a more efficient and cost effective way then driving a huge van around and dealing with traffic.
It is interesting to see where our world and technology is taking us, but also begs the question of how much power are we to give machines? Are we to become so utterly dependent upon technology then how lazy or “dumb” will we as normal humans become? While I love technology and how it can help span distance and time between loved ones, does it override human emotion and connection? All things we should think about as we move as a society towards all these amazing and new technology features.
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