Following on from the original August 2016 announcement of its plans for a level 4 automated vehicle, Ford has confirmed that it will be a bespoke design specifically to meet the needs of commercial fleet operations. While Ford won’t be the first to the automated driving party, it is taking a distinctly different path from its crosstown rival. GM plans to launch its automated driving services with a heavily modified Chevrolet Bolt EV that was demonstrated last week on the streets of San Francisco. Ford currently lags the market in producing and selling battery electric vehicles with the low-volume, 100-mile range Focus Electric being its only offering. Regardless of where that BEV is produced, its crossover configuration is not optimized for how Ford sees the automated vehicle market developing.

Source: Forbes December 07, 2017 02:48 UTC