Ford plans to open research lab in Silicon Valley

Automaker Ford is planning to open a research lab in Silicon Valley, a move it hopes will help it attract the best tech talent and help it stay competitive in the market.

The company announced that it will base the new lab in Palo Alto California, near Stanford University in the next few months. It plans to recruit about 15 people, some of whom will include current employees from the company’s Dearborn headquarters.

Paul Mascarenas, the Chief Technical Officer at Ford, said the decision to have huge presence in Silicon valley was arrived at about a year ago, adding that it will be an important extension into one of the most innovative and talented communities in the world. Paul explained that the research lab will work on better ways to have phones and other personal devices integrated into cars and equally develop safety systems that would alert drivers when approaching other cars.

The Ford lab will also focus on testing independent programmers’ applications. Ford is currently studying one such app which can search for an open parking space, find it and reserve it! Other big issues will also be studied including how to handle huge traffic in highly populated countries such as India and china.

The lab will work in conjunction with the Ford headquarters, its design studios and the company’s office at Microsoft. Ford and Microsoft worked jointly to develop Ford’s touch screen-dashboard (My Ford) and the Sync voice-activated entertainment system.

On why Ford picked Silicon Valley as the best place to base the lab, the Chief Technical Officer said that Silicon Valley will provide better results because of the large pool of talent, and the employees will definitely have the freedom to experiment whatever they imagine-which is very important.

Other automakers that already have similar centres in Silicon Valley include BMW, Renault Alliance and General Motors.