Ford’s high-tech business transformation, fueled by cloud
Summary
The embedded software in the vehicle goes all the way up the cloud.” Technology acquisitions and partnerships are another key enabler of Ford’s high-tech transformation. Ford Pro’s services arm also uses digital tools to provide automated reporting and maintenance of commercial pickups and vans to help customers optimize EV mileage and annual battery use. The ability of all SDVs — combustion-based, hybrid, and fully electric — to feed data up to the cloud provides developers with a plethora of unique opportunities to build algorithms that optimize, and in some cases, automate, vehicles. Ford also plans to leverage generative AI across the company, though that initiative remains in its infancy, Musser says. “Trust me, we’ve seen productivity improvements in development.” As AI continues to advance, it’s not clear what future technologies will be embedded in software-defined vehicles, but what is evident, Musser says, is that the innovations used to make internal processes at Ford more efficient and profitable will also be intricately embedded with the vehicles sold to customers.