Ford Targets Miami to Test Driverless Food Delivery
February 27 2018 - 10:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Tim Higgins
Ford Motor Co., which is focusing its initial forays into the
driverless-car business on around-town deliveries, has picked
Florida's Miami-Dade County as its first test-bed.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based auto maker announced Miami's selection
on Tuesday. The test is two fold: one set of self-driving vehicles,
plus another set of human-driven cars and trucks that deliver food
and other things. The human-driven vehicles will be made to look
like self-driving cars with graphics and fake sensors, and the
drivers will have rules about interacting with the customers with
the aim of creating an experience of what it is like for a robot to
make a delivery. The delivery vehicles in the test will be dropping
off for Domino's Pizza and for Postmates, a food-delivery service.
Other partners are expected to be added.
"We want to understand what customers do to interact with an AV
vehicle, " said Sherif Marakby, Ford's vice president of autonomous
vehicles. Ford conducted a short test with Domino's in Ann Arbor,
Mich., last year.
After years of tests in California, more self-driving car tests
are popping up in places like Phoenix and Pittsburgh. Ford is
racing to catch up with Waymo and General Motors Co.
Waymo, which plans to begin a commercial robot taxi service in
Phoenix this year, received permission to operate a transportation
network from the state of Arizona in January. The unit of
Google-parent Alphabet Inc. also recently added Atlanta to the list
of cities its conducting tests of its self-driving vehicles.
Ford's announcement also comes a day after an announcement that
BMW AG and Toyota Motor Corp.'s corporate venture funds led a $11.5
million fundraising round to help startup May Mobility expand demos
and tests of self-driving shuttles in Tampa and suburban
Dallas.
The activity potentially places further pressure on Congress to
clear a growing thicket of regulatory questions. Legislation aimed
at keeping states from passing competing laws regulating the new
technology -- which have been complicating the self-driving
movement -- has stalled in the Senate. On Monday, the California
Department of Motor Vehicles received final approval to implement
new rules that allow for the deployment of driverless cars in the
state, something, the DMV said, could happen as soon as April.
Write to Tim Higgins at tim.higgins@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 27, 2018 10:14 ET (15:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Ford Motor (NYSE:F)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Ford Motor (NYSE:F)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024