Autonomous Vehicle News
Ford Motor Co. has created a wholly owned subsidiary that will focus on developing a hands-free, eyes-off-the-road automated driving system called Latitude AI, the automaker announced Thursday. This news comes five months after the Dearborn automaker announced in its third quarter earnings report in October 2022 that Ford was exiting its investment in the driverless-tech company Argo AI because it failed to attract new investors. At the time, Argo announced it was winding down operations in Pittsburgh and Ford said it planned to absorb the engineers and developers while utilizing Argo facilities. When Ford announced taking a significant financial loss that quarter, which reflected the Argo loss, Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said profitable, fully autonomous vehicles were a long way off. Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer at Ford, said, "The deep experience and talent in our Latitude team will help us accelerate the development of all-new automated driving technology."