Ford stalls on autonomy and electrification

Despite hosting a forum in Melbourne this week focussing on future mobility – and its 2014 promise to release its first hybrid vehicle "within the next few years", Ford Australia is unwilling to give any iron-clad timing for when it will introduce an autonomous or electrified vehicle to the local market.

Internationally, Ford has committed to launching an autonomous vehicle aimed at ride-sharing duties in 2021, while in December 2015 it announced a massive $US4.5 billion commitment to electrification.

It has also more recently confirmed a significant roll-out of hybrids and plug-in hybrids including an electrified Mustang by 2020.

At the Future with Ford talkfest at the Melbourne Museum on Wednesday, both mobility and electrification were discussed by some high-powered speakers including the Blue Oval’s own global futurist, Sheryl Connelly.

But Ford Australia president Graeme Whickman (pictured) made it clear there was still much policy and detail work to done before autonomous and electrified vehicles could become members of the local showroom.

“I would love to be at the forefront (of autonomy) but it has to be on the back of essentially the key stakeholders agreeing a common point of view then forging to it,” Whickman told motoring.com.au.

“There might be infrastructure implications, there might public regulation, there might be legal ramifications and that doesn’t change overnight and it can’t come through one company.”

While guarded in his language, Whickman clearly feels the road to autonomy needs to be accelerated at a federal government level, rather than through state-based initiatives as is happening now.

“There is probably more state-based activities at the moment and you are seeing that in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. I think we as an industry would be looking for more of a federal point of view and not at state-based levels because that doesn’t provide the efficiencies for either consumers or companies or industry.

“Our ambition would be to create and generate more dialogue and discussions with key government agencies and ministers to ensure we are future-proofing ourselves -- both private and public – for the onset of what autonomous and mobility services can provide.”

EVs fall into the same basket for Ford. It had been expected that the local arm of the company would at least have a hybrid version of the Mondeo on sale in Australia by now, but it seems that plan has at best been delayed.

Whickman would only say an electrified vehicle would be sold in Australia by Ford “in the future”.

“I won’t say in the near or medium feature,” he added.

“There were 12,000 electric vehicles sold here last year give or take, so it’s actually about one per cent of all vehicles sold in this market were electric vehicles.

“We as a company globally are within the top two sellers of electric vehicles in the world. In Australia, we are nowhere and one of the reasons for that is obvious; we need to answer the demands of our customers and we also need to live up to the framework of regulation and legislation that exists in the market as well.

“Until we see a clear view of that -- the government’s point of view on the industry going forward -- we will then make some investment decisions.”

During his presentation at the forum, Whickman reeled off a series of stats to back up Ford’s global strategy, campaign for new mobility solutions and why it was relevant for Australia.

“Australia was recently named the second most congested country in the high-income world,” he said. “If you believe things are difficult now, mobility is set to become even more challenging in the future.

“By 2037 the ABS [Australian Bureau of Statistics] predicts the population in Australia is going to reach 33 million and not many years past that creep to 40 million.

“The impact of these extra Australians will be felt no more keenly than on the roads with projections that nine out of 10 Australians will live in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth by about 2050.

“The associated congestion won’t just be frustrating, it will be costly too. The projections from the bureau of infrastructure say the point of all social cost of metropolitan congestion could be around $30 billion by 2030. That’s not that far away.

“That same bureau found the rapid development of semi- or fully-autonomous vehicles and the associated infrastructure has the potential to significantly reduce congestion in terms of costs.”

Whickman told motoring.com.au the Future with Ford forum was intended to help provide the future mobility debate in Australia with a push-along.

“There is the inkling of dialogue in Australia but not enough,” he said.

“I think Australians need to be exposed to what is going to happen and at what potential speed, and the more we talk about that the more we will be able to start to deal with some of the benefits but also some of the challenges.”