Ford Takes Fight To Tesla Camp With New Self-Driving Subsidiary 'Latitude AI:' What You Need To Know

Ford Motor Company F announced Thursday another initiative in its quest to truly transition to an electric vehicle company.

What Happened: Ford said it has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary called “Latitude AI,” that will work on developing what it called “hands-free, eyes-off-the-road automated driving system.”

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The company said it is putting in place a team of machine learning, robotics, software, sensors, systems engineering and operations talents to help in developing automated driving technology. The team would also work on advancing Ford BlueCruise, its hands-free highway driving feature, which permits removing hands from the steering wheel in a hands-free “Blue Zone.”

“We see automated driving technology as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between people and their vehicles,” said Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer at Ford. The company quoted research firm transportation analytics firm INRIX, which showed that an average driver in the U.S. spends nearly 100 hours a year sitting in traffic.

Latitude would support Ford’s strategic shift that it began in 2022 to focus on automated driving technologies for personally-owned vehicles.

The company said Sammy Omari, executive director, ADAS Technologies at Ford, will serve as CEO of Latitude and Peter Carr would function as chief technology officer. Business operations would be handled by David Gollob, Ford said.

Latitude is headquartered in Pittsburgh, with additional engineering hubs in Dearborn and Palo Alto and a highway-speed test track facility in Greenville, South Carolina. Incidentally, Tesla recently announced its global engineering office in Palo Alto.

Why It’s Important: Ford’s intensifying focus comes amid the automaker’s commitment toward electrification. Autonomous driving is part and parcel of the new-age EVs and EV pioneer Tesla Inc. TSLA, for one, has its Autopilot and is now in the final stages of testing its full-self driving software suite. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been touting that the company hopes to achieve Level 4 autonomy with its FSD, although many debate his claims.

Ford’s BlueCruise and rival General Motors Corp.’s GM Super Cruise all are said to qualify as Level 1 autonomy.

Separately, Ford reported February sales that showed an increase from 129,273 units in 2022 to 157,606 units, a 21.9% year-over-year increase. On a month-over-month basis, sales climbed a more modest 7.7%.

EV sales jumped 68.1% to 3,523 units, with 1,783 units of them being Mustang Mach-E and 1,336 units being F-150 Lightning pick-up trucks. E-Transit vans accounted for the remaining 404 units. Pureplay EVs accounted for under 3% of the company's total vehicle sales in February.

Price Action: Ford closed Thursday’s session up 1.87%, at $12.55, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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