The new Ford, a Silicon Valley software company
theverge.com
theverge.com
Sure Ford can throw some money at a few labs and occasionally turn something into a product. Spending money on R&D doesn't make you a software company.
I wish them the best.
Chrysler and GM both went bankrupt during the financial crisis. Ford didn't. It's by far the best run car company in North America.
At least in what I've seen, Ford is one of the few mass-production car makers doing some pretty interesting stuff.
That sort of system, while important, is not particularly complicated or advanced though. The tech been employed in various forms for over a decade, I don't see the software implementation as evidence of competency within ford.
In hindsight on the whole comment, though, I'm probably just pleased with Ford right now because I'm quite impressed with the Focus RS, but that certainly doesn't prove that their leadership is strong.
2. It's a 1k deposit. I just purchased a car last year, otherwise I probably would have put down 1k on the chance I do decide to buy a Tesla.
A deposit isn't needed. It's a silly comparison anyway as the Tesla is an entirely new thing, vs already established.
A better comparison would be if 5 years from Tesla announced a new major revision of the model 3 (similar to what ford did with the F-150 this last year) and got 200k orders immediately.
now all this being said, if Ford announced a brand new electric vehicle tomorrow with similar specs/price as the Tesla I really doubt they could get preorders like this.
All I'm saying is there seems to be a pretty big difference in whats easily and cheaply possible and what the status quo auto industry execs have been doing. A good example is every single car at this point should come with a touch screen head unit and a not-invented-here operating system on it. Traditionally all these execs believe that such a thing should cost thousands of dollars in upgrades either by model class or just the configuration itself. Few seem to realize they can easily generate 10x the revenue with software features and upgrades than they can with the hardware feature upgrade itself. The cost difference is pretty negligible... but the status quo gives them far less potential.
It's far worse than that. The top phone manufacturers before Apple were Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Blackberry.
These transitions are wrecking entire fields of players. It's not enough to avoid becoming the next Nokia, you have to sprint like hell and pray to Jesus, Allah, and Vishnu that you can become the next Samsung.
And unless you have a major government behind you, odds are you're not the next Samsung.
Unfortunately software is also fastest moving and most labor intensive of all components, it is also permeated across business. So you have to build a culture for it. So a company moving earlier will have key advantage over a company trying to acquire software and its culture at last moment.
We have seen it happen earlier in industries, and it will keep on happening. Will Ford be able to pull it up a question, but there is no other road to take.
Something else to consider. Tesla sold about 50k model S last year. Ford sold that many F-150s, in a month.
I mentioned maybe a Subaru? A few weeks went by, and through an email she said she wanted a new F-150. She, is I belive in her 70's. She always lied about her age, so I don't know her exact age.
I just thought it was a strange pick. Ford is doing someting right with that truck. I asked her why, and she said she liked the aluminum body. I think it has more to do with just the ride height? She's small in stature.
I've always liked the f-150, but went away from Ford when I realized I can put 250,000 on a Toyota.
I'd say that it's the new necessity for any large-scale operation. Software (and tech overall) is integrated into everything, and relegating it to an expense column is increasingly a mistake in any enterprise.
I do this for a living (teach Fortune 500 to make software like SV). The culture change is immensely hard and most organizations flat out cannot make the change. They will see more nimble competitors emerge, margins will shrink, then they'll consolidate, and continue to seek regulatory protection via lobbyists.
http://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/innovating-togeth...
Also lots of major hospitals also have "innovation centers" that try to innovate on in-patient and out-patient care and IoT in a clinical setting setting.
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-...
Also finally, also very curious if GE's move to Boston will be just for tax breaks or if they are planning to open up an tech incubator of their own in the area:
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2016/03/ge-...
I know the person who got permission from Ford leadership to open and lead their Silicon Valley lab in 2012. They gave him funding to select a building, and select furniture, but somehow neglected to authorize any meaningful hiring for over a year, except a few interns. He sat in a virtually empty office.
When he finally left this situation behind, Ford didn't hire a new lab head for nearly a year after that.
Press coverage for Ford's new presence in Silicon Valley continued unabated during this entire period. When you read these articles, you should picture very expensive office space in Palo Alto, sitting empty.
"We’re a brand that’s recognized around the world consistently. We don’t have different brands in different parts of the world."
Well, you have Lincoln (and for much of history, Mercury) in the US. They sell your cars under different names, but don't really exist much outside of North America. Then you have Mazda, your activities with which I cannot summarize better than to quote Wikipedia:
"The Mazda B-Series and Ford Ranger models sold in North America were developed by Ford, whereas models sold elsewhere under the same badge were engineered by Mazda."
So no. You aren't a single brand everywhere. It's hard to see how you could claim this with a straight face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_BT-50
Ford and Mazda vehicles are manufactured in Thailand by a single company:
If that doesn't make a lot of sense, consider this: it's a general purpose computing device with a suite of acceptable productivity software (and third party ecosystem) that gets over 24 hours of battery life off of 4 AAs. Very useful for head-down writing/thinking.
Not sure how they're going to focus on software without integrating that with car design, maybe it's the whole "FordPay" allusion that was made later but this just seems not integrated or solution-driven enough to compete with Telsa, Google, Apple or Uber.
Just seems like Ford wants it's finger in all pies.
If Ford can convince us that working for them is a path toward making motoring better for a hundred thousand people per vehicle model, wouldn't we be interested? Or are we only up for hacking on prototypes whose main hope of mass production is getting acquired by a major maker?
My main point was that at a startup I most likely would have the opportunity to shape the engineering culture, hire people, architect, and build a company from the ground up. I wouldn't have to deal with the horrifying corporate culture that comes with any massive company.
If people have true success stories of corporate outposts out here, please share. I'm happy to be proven wrong.
If the management tree is deeper than log(2) your age, run away :-)
(This is assuming a roughly normal company overall. Something that really takes being flat seriously, like a worker's cooperative, might be different, but I've never worked at such a place.)
Sure, but the question here is would you rather work on auto-related stuff at Ford or Apple? Admittedly I have no idea what Apple is up to, but I do know from a couple of acquaintances working in the car industry that they've recently interviewed a ton of automotive engineers.
Ford, of course. Where my manager and my manager's manager and so on know about the technical aspects of automobile development, facilities for automobile-specific testing (engine test cells, turbocharger test cells, wind tunnels, anechoic chambers, etc.) are available, experienced technicians can advise me...
Given how many engineers I know of whom have left traditional car companies to go work for automotive 'startups' it seems that they have a real problem holding on to talent despite the advantages you mentioned.
But I do know that if I wanted to get into the auto industry, I'd rather go with the one that has 100 years experience instead of the one just getting started.
It depends on what you mean by "auto-related stuff." In-Vehicle entertainment? I'd go to Apple. Powertrain management (the stuff that I'm more interested in)? Ford, no question.
Perhaps I'm just jaded by the traditional Detroit mismanagement.
Secondly, $$$ can go a long way in competing for talent
Better for Ford, there will be a #2 who isn't #2 on purely technical grounds but just because (s)he didn't arrive at just the right time, like the current #1 luckily did.
I am not trying to knock Detroit or Dearborn, but it seems like they would need to do this. Maybe I missed it in the article. I think it would be kind of hard (even given the cost of living) to get top talent to migrate from, say Cupertino, to Dearborn en masse.
edit: aside from the Innovation Center/Lab.