As the automaker becomes a mobility company, it?s trying to understand the future of urban transportation A recent discussion of urban mobility convened by Ford Motor Company was about as far away from the ground as one could get in New York: the event took place inside the 102-story observation deck of One World Trade Center. But the conversation was firmly grounded in the realities of moving through city streets?and how that?s all about to change.
At the company?s City of Tomorrow panel, held on January 31, the venerable automaker showed that it?s looking forward to new ways of helping customers move around the urban landscape, and clearly engaged in making a big technological leap. It even just opened a new retail experience, the FordHub, that?s all about transportation, not selling cars. Unlike the beautiful panorama of New York City that served as a backdrop for the event, the roadmap for the future of transportation is anything but clear.

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Ford?s City of Tomorrow campaign envisions the future of urban mobility

To Ford?s credit, nobody has that route figured out, and the company has reacted relatively swiftly to the new reality of urban mobility ushered in by new services such as Uber (or, as fast as a massive international firm whose core business model is threatened can be expected to act). The company has launched bike-share networks and a crowdsourced shuttle van transport system named Chariot. It has invested in autonomous v...