Ford establishes R&D center in Silicon Valley

Ford Motor Co. has announced plans to create and open its first dedicated research lab in Silicon Valley in 1H 2012. Ford Research and Innovation, the company's advanced engineering arm, will open the new Silicon Valley lab in the first quarter, and develop mobility solutions to harness the power of seamless connectivity, cloud computing and clean technology.

"An open attitude to new ideas is critical to solving the transportation, environmental and societal challenges we expect in the future," said Paul Mascarenas, Ford chief technical officer and vice president of Research and Innovation. "With increasing pressures from urbanization and the need to reduce energy use, we're going to see energy storage, wireless connectivity, sensing systems and even autonomous vehicles as key parts of the solution."

The new Ford lab will serve as a hub for independent technology projects and identification of new research investments and partners. Ultimately, the lab will create an "innovation network" connecting Ford's Advanced Design Studio in Irvine, California; and Ford employees working with connectivity platform partner Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Washington. The new research lab's employees will be recruited both locally and rotated-in from the global network of Ford employees and will spend their time developing and discovering new technologies, trends, partners and collaborative research projects.

The establishment of Ford's all-new Silicon Valley lab will not duplicate or replace work being done at the company's Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn, its European facility in Aachen, Germany; or the recently established technology office in Nanjing, China.

Ford's global Research and Innovation team is already working in several key areas that will be supported by the work of the Silicon Valley lab including:
• Personal mobility: Mindful of consumer trends and the growth of megacities, Ford is researching new business models that will help avoid the creation of global gridlock through a holistic approach to personal transportation

• Open-source hardware and software developer kits: Working with New York City-based startup Bug Labs, Ford is launching OpenXC, a research platform that will allow developers to access key vehicle data in order to innovate cloud-based apps and services. The first OpenXC beta developer kits will be shipped in January 2012 to several participating universities including MIT, University of Michigan and Stanford University.

• The car as a sensor: Researching ways to utilize the multitude of sensors within the vehicle to improve the road for all drivers, Ford is opening the data channels to developers.


Ford Motor Co.