Ford aims to have 100 self-driving vehicles on the road by the end of the year, its president of mobility said on Thursday.
After reporting a top- and bottom-line earnings beat, Ford’s Marcy Klevorn said on the company earnings call that the automaker’s autonomous vehicle efforts are going well in Miami and Washington, D.C.
Klevorn said Ford makes an effort to test its autonomous vehicles in cities with a “really difficult setting to prove capability.” Compared to some of its competitors, like Tesla and GM, Ford said it prefers testing in places with seasonal weather changes and intense urban challenges.
Klevorn said Ford is focusing more on “complex miles” than point-A-to-point-B miles in an area where everyone is retired and the roads don’t change a lot. The company will begin testing in a third city later this year.
The company announced in March that it would build a new factory in Michigan to expedite its autonomous vehicle efforts. Rival self-driving car companies, like Tesla and Waymo, are also expanding road tests.
