Ford will start testing self-driving cars on the public roads of California. Fully autonomous Ford Fusion Hybrids are expected to be seen on California’s streets starting with 2016.
Ford will expand its strategic research partnership with Stanford University in 2016 to 13 projects, more than double the number of collaborations from 2015. The partnership aims to research and solve some of the technical challenges related to automated driving.
The experimentation in California will be key to Ford’s 10-year development program for autonomous tech. The company has been using the Silicon Valley lab to further these innovations. The engineers there worked to improve safety through camera-based pedestrian detection.
Ford joins several other companies that are part of the testing program, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, Tesla and Google.
