Ford ready to innovate, but not at the expense of customer needs
RANCHOS PALOS VERDES, California -- Ford wants to innovate, but not at the expense of its customers and core business. That's the core takeaway from Ford CEO Mark Fields' sit down on Tuesday with Recode's Kara Swisher and Pete Kafka at the annual Code Conference.
"[We] want to keep up with the customer, not just keep up with the competition," Fields said.
While Fields talked about the company's investment in Silicon Valley and its Smart Mobility Initiative, he wouldn't share details on exactly what it's doing in the autonomous driving space and, especially, refused to reveal any details regarding conversations his company has had with Google and other companies in the tech industry. When Swisher pressed, Ford demurred and said "We talk with everybody."
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Ford is, Fields noted, working on raising its game in the software space, though his products sound, increasingly, like rolling computers. The new Ford F-150 truck, for example, has 150 million lines of code. Even so, Fields explained Ford's recent decision to take an equity position in Pivotal Labs because they realized "we really need to up our game in learning on delivering in these advanced software methodologies," he said.
As for the changing landscape of car ownership, Fields believes there's still significant headroom in the traditional automotive business, especially because of the massive growth of the middle class (outside the U.S.) and the continuing need for personally-owned vehicles outside urban areas.
"Car industry is still a growth business," he said, noting that even a market that devalues ownership over service-based cars offers significant business opportunities for Ford. "Vehicles on the road 24/7 will rack up miles much more than private-use vehicle," he said. The service needs for these cars will be greater as well and crucial since uptime on service cars is "absolutely critical."
Ford, though, is preparing for a autonomous future. Fields told Swisher that in cars "25 years from now, we'll see a lot of advanced, driverless features."
Fields was also complimentary of some of his most disruptive competition. When asked about Tesla Founder and CEO Elon Musk, he said, "I think Elon has done a very good job of raising the awareness and support for electric vehicles....They've done very good things in terms of how to use tech to to interact with customers."
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Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
