Monday, February 1, 2021

Ford's connected vehicles to run Google's Android

Ford and Google announce a strategic partnership to accelerate "to reinvent the connected vehicle experience" Under a six-year agreement beginning in 2023, millions of Ford and Lincoln vehicles will run Android, with Google apps and services built-in. This includes Google Maps as the vehicles’ primary navigation with information on real-time traffic, automatic rerouting, lane guidance, etc.

Ford also named Google Cloud its preferred cloud provider to leverage Google’s world-class expertise in data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). 

In addition, the companies are forming a collaborative group, called Team Upshift, to develop new personalized consumer experiences and data-driven opportunities. 

“As Ford continues the most profound transformation in our history with electrification, connectivity and self-driving, Google and Ford coming together establishes an innovation powerhouse truly able to deliver a superior experience for our customers and modernize our business,” said Jim Farley, President and CEO of Ford.

“From the first moving assembly line to the latest driver-assist technology, Ford has set the pace of innovation for the automotive industry for nearly 120 years,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “We’re proud to partner to apply the best of Google’s AI, data analytics, compute and cloud platforms to help transform Ford's business and build automotive technologies that keep people safe and connected on the road.”