Ford’s plans for self-driving cars have not been going well apparently. Ford CEO Jim Hackett admitted that the automaker’s first self-driving cars will have limits. “We overestimated the arrival of autonomous vehicles,” said Hackett speaking at a Detroit Economic Club event on Tuesday.
Ford still plans to launch a fleet of self-driving vehicles in 2021. Hackett added that “its applications will be narrow, what we call geo-fenced, because the problem is so complex.”
Details regarding the progress of Ford’s self-driving fleet come nearly six months after Sherif Markaby, CEO of autonomous vehicles, provided details on the company’s self-driving car service in a Medium post. So far, Ford has invested over $ billion in self-driving development through 2023. This includes over $1 billion investment in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence company responsible for creating a virtual driver system.
Ford is currently testing its self-driving vehicles in Miami, Washington, D.C. and Detroit. Hackett may have shed some reality into self-driving vehicles and how Ford is progressing, he did say he firmly believes in the technology and its potential.
