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Bill Ford says carsharing helps Ford, EVs need to be clean

To most people, Bill Ford is most famous for being the great-grandson of Henry Ford. But, as the executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, Ford has also been leading the company into greener and greener territory. At the morning plenary session for the 21st World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in Detroit today, Ford discussed a wide variety of topics, including connected cars (of course), plug-in vehicle and how Ford's collaboration with Zipcar came about because of he liked what the Zipcar CEO was excited about getting cars off the road. Given that the conference has a big focus on communication between cars this year, it's no surprise that Ford talked about his company's work on that front. He's looking at the long term, though, and says that despite announcements like the one General Motors made yesterday about Super Cruise, when fully autonomous vehicles get here, it won't be headline news since the ground work is being laid by technologies coming to cars in bits and pieces now. In other words, your adaptive cruise control is getting ready for bigger and better things. "My fear is that we electrify the fleet and our impact is not what it could be." – Bill Ford On the zero-emission vehicle front, Ford said that while he's in favor of electric vehicles, "My fear is that we electrify the fleet and our impact is not what it could be." He was discussing the emissions reality of coal-powered electricity, and said that, "We've got to have a national discussion about what we want our grid to look like." As for the work that Ford is doing with Zipcar (which is just one of the many automaker carsharing operations out there today), Ford said that he first approached Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith after hearing Griffith talk at a green conference four or five years ago. Griffith was surprised, Ford said, because he had just given a talk about ways to reduce car ownership. "Did you hear my speech? I talked about taking cars off the road," Ford remembers Griffith saying. "Yeah, and what's going to happen without us," Ford responded. Today, the partnership allows Ford to get cars to people that have traditionally been "hard to reach," like college students on campuses. Ford's vehicles are currently available on 250 colleges campuses. Ford then spoke favorably about other challenges to the traditional car ownership model, like Lyft and Relay Rides. "Rather than being frightened by that, we need embrace it and help makes their companies better," he said.

Ford launches mobile coronavirus test program with partners

For its latest coronavirus act, Ford has joined forces with a Detroit university, its affiliated physicians group and an Arab-American human services nonprofit to launch a mobile Covid-19 testing program for symptomatic first responders, health care workers and corrections officers in Michigan. Since Monday, Ford has been supplying Lincoln Navigators and drivers from the Lincoln Personal Driver pilot service, both offered through its Ford X in-house incubator. They’re equipped with tents, sanitation, power and Wi-Fi. Partners Wayne State University, the Wayne State University Physician Group and Dearborn-based ACCESS are providing staff and medical kits. The program is billed as an extension of drive-through testing sites operating in Detroit and Dearborn, but capable instead of bringing testing to locations and people who lack access to it. The mobile Navigator test vehicles will be capable of testing up to 100 people per day at no cost, with results returned within 24 to 36 hours. Testing will start at sites in southeast Michigan and then branch out to other parts of the state, including Battle Creek, Lansing and Grand Rapids. Michigan has been a major epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., with 27,001 confirmed cases and 1,768 deaths as of the most current data from Tuesday. The state has been under a stay-at-home order since March 23. With its factories remaining temporarily idled for vehicle production, Ford has kept busy branching out into the fight against the novel coronavirus on multiple fronts. It kicked off production of a waist-mounted, powered air-purifying respirator it designed with 3M on Tuesday, and it plans to begin building ventilators at a plant in Michigan next week. Earlier this week, Ford announced it was helping a supplier that makes airbags use the material instead for reusable medical gowns for health care workers. Employees are also manufacturing protective face masks at its Van Dyke Transmission Plant, plastic face shields at a subsidiary near Detroit and helping a medical device company ramp up production of Covid-19 field testing kits. Related Video:     Ford Lincoln SUV

2015 Ford Mustang spied on video for the first time

Not many cars will continue to hold our rapt attention quite like the upcoming redesigned 2015 Ford Mustang, codenamed S550 internally. Earlier this month, we brought you the first spy photos of a next-gen Mustang prototype out testing, and even though expertly placed cladding concealed the pony car's new shape, we could tell that underneath was hiding an altogether new form inspired by the Evos Concept from 2011.
Today we give you some video of what looks to be the same Mustang prototype, which you can watch below, and while the budding director behind the camera wasn't able to capture much in the way of the engine's audio signature, we can see the car in motion for the first time and compare its relative size and shape to the S197 Mustang GT that's on its tail.