The technology giants are back and preparing for battle with the automotive industry. However, the opposition has no intention of rolling over and accepting defeat – in fact, Ford say the healthy competition is being seen as an “opportunity”.
We’re now living in a world where it’s possible to gather the man and machine power to enter a number of industries – if there’s profit, there’s room to expand. The old saying of ‘there’s no such thing as an original idea’ is becoming more apparent and common practice is edging toward creating a quality version of an existing idea, rather than something entirely ‘new’.
With employees of the BBC previously declaring its future broadcast competitors “are not necessarily going to be primarily ITV and so on, it’s going to be Google, Netflix, Amazon”, technology companies like Google and Apple are now being regarded as potential rivals for car manufacturers.
In an interview with the BBC, Chief Executive of Ford Mark Fields has suggested previous competitors General Motors or Chrysler will take a back-seat while the technology giants attempt to take the wheel. With it being strongly believed that the latter are working on cars of its own, Fields is seeing the new competitors as an added incentive for those at Ford.
“There are a lot of traditional competitors that we have in our business who we know and we respect,” he stated.
“There are a lot of new non-traditional competitors who are looking at the automotive space and looking at that addressable market and saying ‘gee can we get a piece of that’.”
“We are viewing that as an opportunity not as a threat and there will be some things [we can do] on our own to be able to satisfy those customer needs that technology enables.
“And at other times we will partner with others and that’s the reason we set up a big research and innovation centre in Palo Alto because we want to collaborate with and participate in that environment.”
Ford have been active in launching a new technology business in Silicon Valley, where it will work on “autonomous cars” that are seemly straight from a sci-fi film. And it seems Ford’s assumption that Apple is planning on moving into the automotive business is correct, after the company recently hired Chris Porritt, former vice president of vehicle engineering and Aston Martin chief engineer – It doesn’t take much to guess what’s going on there.
So when can we expect to be zipping around in a driverless car?
Completely driverless cars – that is, driverless versions of the cars we drive on the roads today – are quite far away, but towns and cities featuring driverless cars could be with us by the end of the decade, according to Ford.
Fields says Ford are “working very, very intently” on releasing a location-limited automated car within the next four years, but accepts it may not be the first.
According to reports, Apple’s own car (we’ll call it the iCar) is set to be launched in just three years, but with no official announcement this can easily change. During a Reddit AMA, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said the “car market makes total sense to me for Apple” but thinks the product will need to be “insanely great” or it should drop it and start again.
Further news of tech companies developing new products certainly emphasises concerns of the ‘big boys’ moving into and potentially taking over new industries. With the car market worth revenues of around an estimated £1.6 trillion every year, it comes as no surprise that more companies want a slice of the pie.
Could we soon see the tech leaders move into the games industry, real estate or maybe we’ll be sending our children to a private school built, maintained and financed by Amazon – it all sounds ridiculous, but don’t be too surprised if that’s the future we’re heading towards.
