Audi, Kia, Mercedes Benz, and a host of other car companies are at CES 2012 this year, each one doing its best to prove its vehicles are the most high-tech. But Ford seems to have the inside track. Its Ford Sync platform has become the benchmark against which all other in-car systems are compared. Its new Fusion is the first car to be available in gasoline, hybrid, and fully electronic models. And just last week, the company announced that it was opening up a R&D Lab in Silicon Valley in order to stay closer to the trends—and presumably the talent—that will be shaping the future of the American automobile.
I got the chance to sit down with Ford's Chief Technology Officer, Paul Mascarenas, at the company's CES 2012 booth. Mascarenas was fresh from the North American Auto Show in Detroit, but says his hectic scheduling is to be expected.
"When CES was started, no one thought consumer electronics would have anything do with the auto industry," Mascarenas said.
Just how important is technology when it comes to selling cars?
First of all, any technologies you add have to be relevant to the in-car experience. That said, we have data that shows more than 50 percent of people buying new cars say that Sync was one of their key priorities, along with fuel economy and safety. Post purchase, we have found that 70 to 80 percent of users are very satisfied with technology. Those are really high numbers.
There are what, 4 million cars that have Sync built-in in now?
We just hit the 4 million mark, yes. And that is just for North America. We just entered the European market, so that is whole new space for us. About 82 percent of Ford customers have cars with Sync, and that number is expected to rise as Sync becomes standard in the Ford Fusion sedan.
How does having a platform like Sync change the relationship between you and your customers?
One of the advantages of the Sync platform is the ability to upgrade. You can update the entertainment options and the GPS. Through the Sync My Ride webpage, you can download new software. We also sent USB keys to all of our existing customers with the latest software.
With software, you can update the car overtime. We are adding value and keeping the car current. We haven't seen a lot of data on this yet, but I think that over time that added value is going to make a big difference with users.
Just like a lot of CE manufacturers, you are turning to software to innovate, correct?
So much of it becomes software-based. Look at Auto-Park Assist, the technology that will automatically park your car for you. Delivering Auto-Park Assist is all software; it is all about the algorithms. Everything else is already in the car—the cameras, the radar, the power steering, the power train. You just need the software to make it work.
And you are letting more software vendors in with programs like AppLink?
You can bring in almost any device and sync it with Bluetooth. We also have a set of application partners that we give our SDK to. We are being selective with the apps. We want to make sure they are high quality and relevant. Just yesterday, we announced the NPR app, it is just an amazing app. We also offer Pandora and Roximity.
And like everyone else, you are branching out into mobile health?
It is a well-established societal trend. People want to know more about their personal health. When we look at the car as a platform, we want to enable applications that could provide information about air quality, or blood sugar level, or heart rate monitoring.
So what's next?
We have talked about it for a while but we are getting to the point where the car really is you second home, your second office. And you are going to want to connect to everything you would have there from inside the car. We are not saying it has to be through Ford's cloud; it could be your cloud. We just want to make the connection.