Ford is putting its autonomous vehicles through rigorous testing. Their latest challenge: snow.
Inclement weather—heavy rain, snow, hail, and other slippery, low-grip situations—is a fact of life. Especially in Michigan, where the company is testing its self-driving cars at the simulated Mcity.
"In the real world, you don't always have the perfect, sunny weather. So we feel it's important to test in weather like snow," Randy Visintainer, director of Autonomous Vehicles and Controls at Ford, said in a video.
"And not only to do the testing—to understand how the system performs and how we can improve it—but also to let the public know we are looking at these conditions and we're looking at how to make our systems robust to these kind of weather conditions," he added.
At CES last week, Ford Chief Technology Officer Raj Nair announced that Ford is tripling its fleet of Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles this year, making it the largest among all automakers. The latest generation of test vehicles will use Velodyne's new Solid-State Hybrid Ultra Puck, which is a sensor that provides precise information for detailed mapping and accurate real-time 3D models of the environment surrounding your car.
This will bring Ford's total number of autonomous test vehicles to 30, which are being tested on roads in Arizona, California, and Michigan.
The Detroit-based car maker this week also introduced FordPass, a sort of transportation concierge coming this spring for Ford owners and non-owners.
FordPass aims to do for motorists what iTunes did for music fans. Members can take advantage of four basic elements: Marketplace for mobility services, FordGuides for on-road assistance, Appreciation for loyal users, and FordHubs for new innovations.
Other perks include transportation services like reserving and paying for parking in advance; ride- and car-sharing and multimodal transportation services will be added in the future.
"Instead of having a handful of interactions with consumers each year, we determined we could actually have a handful of interactions each day, with the intent to make people's lives easier and more rewarding," Stephen Odell, Ford's executive vice president of Global Marketing, Sales, and Service, said in a statement.
FordPass was born out of a 72-hour marathon led by a team of Ford employees (above) bent on making drivers' lives easier. That means starting your car via a mobile app, redeeming perks with retailers and restaurants, and calling roadside assistance from any location.