Ford exec expects consumers to get fully autonomous cars by 2026-2031

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s head of research believes the general public won’t be able to buy a fully autonomous vehicle until sometime between 2026 and 2031.

The automaker is developing a Level 4 self-driving vehicle -- without a steering wheel or gas and brake pedals -- for use in a ride-sharing service in 2021. Ken Washington, Ford’s vice president of research and advanced engineering, said sales to individual consumers likely won’t happen until five to 10 years after that first fleet implementation.

That’s a more conservative timeline than what has previously been suggested by CEO Mark Fields, who has said the automaker would offer robot cars to consumers by about 2025.

“It’s really hard to guess and predict the pace of the technology,” Washington said as part of a keynote address at the SAE WCX World Congress Experience. “Our current view is the adoption rates will be relatively gradual.”

Despite the slow rollout, Washington said self-driving cars will be a reality.

“This is not science fiction,” he said. “This is not a research project. This is something we’re going to make happen, and others will, too.”

The automaker is looking to autonomous vehicles and other new mobility technologies to help solve societal problems, such as increasing congestion, worsening air quality and changing consumer attitudes.

Washington said Ford is using advancements in computing, brain-machine interfaces and data and analytics to help make that happen.

The automaker recently agreed to pay $1 billion over five years to tech startup Argo AI for the development of its autonomous vehicles. It’s also working with companies like in LiDAR-maker Velodyne; 3D-map maker Civil Maps; machine vision company Nirenberg Neuroscience and computer vision and machine learning company SAIPS.

“The revolution in computing is making things possible that was previously unfathomable,” Washington said. “We need to be imagining these kinds of futures.”

Traditional automakers are facing increased challenges from Silicon Valley startups and tech companies such as Uber, Lyft, Google and Apple in the race to develop autonomous cars. Washington said the auto industry is up to that challenge.

“I think the automotive industry is every bit as innovative as the technology companies,” he said. “They’re realizing it’s harder than it looks and that an automaker partnership is pretty important to bring it home.”