Conversation with Bill Ford on Smart Mobility at SXSW 2017
March 29, 2017 – At SXSW Interactive 2017, C3 President and Cofounder Doug Newcomb had the pleasure of appearing onstage with Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford. The hour-long conversation covered topics ranging from Ford’s ambitious Smart Mobility initiative to the business culture that Bill’s great-grandfather and company founder Henry Ford fostered and still resonates today. The onstage […] [Continue Reading]
Trump’s Fuel Economy Standard Cuts Could Cripple Innovation
March 21, 2017 – As part of sweeping efforts to reduce regulation and boost business, last week President Trump announced plans to relax fuel economy standards. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which were implemented decades ago but accelerated under President Obama, call for automakers to reach a fleetwide average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. In typical […] [Continue Reading]
How Data Can Help Cities Hone Deployment of Self-Driving Cars
March 10, 2017 – If the vision of the future according to many automakers and companies like Uber and Google is accurate, we’ll see self-driving cars buzzing around cities soon. Ford, for example, plans to have fully autonomous vehicles available for ride-sharing in urban areas in just four years, and Uber has already been pushing the boundaries of the […] [Continue Reading]
Human Drivers Could Go the Way of Elevator Operators
March 6, 2017 – As NPR pointed out in 2015, “every new automatic device that enters our lives, from automatic doors to escalators, has had to face this awkward moment where people are skeptical and maybe scared.” When the first public railway opened in England in 1825, for example, people thought the human body wasn’t made to withstand travel […] [Continue Reading]
Transportation Secretary to Auto Industry: ‘Educate Skeptical Public’ about Self-Driving Tech
March 1, 2017 – As car companies, tech firms such as Google and ride-sharing giant Uber continue to pour money and resources into self-driving technology, a large unknown is how the Trump administration and its new Transportation Secretary will approach autonomous car regulation. With so much at stake, companies investing in self-driving technology are eager to learn whether the […] [Continue Reading]
Why SXSW Has Become a Can’t-Miss Mobility Event
February 27, 2017 – Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx at SXSW 2016. SXSW in Austin, Texas started out more than 30 years ago as a music conference. But over the past decade the event has evolved into one of the largest technology events in the world, a place to spot future trends (Twitter was launched there in 2007) and to […] [Continue Reading]
Ford’s Advanced Voice Recognition Technology Could Have You Falling in Love with Your Car
February 24, 2017 – In the movie Her, an invisible voice-assistant named Samantha not only reacts and anticipates the lead character’s wants and needs, but becomes intimately familiar with aspects of his life and loves based on the tone of his voice. Ahead of Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona, Ford has announced it’s working on making voice […] [Continue Reading]
Jaguar, Shell Partnership First in a Series of In-Car Payment Options for British Car Brand
February 20, 2017 – We’ve seen proof of concepts for cashless transactions via a vehicle’s dashboard for everything from parking to pizzas. Now Jaguar has made in-car payment for fuel a reality via a partnership with Shell. Owners of 2018 F-Pace, XE, and XF vehicles in the UK can now pay for fuel at a Shell station via […] [Continue Reading]
Continental And Urban Software Institute Partner to Leverage Vehicle Data to Improve Traffic Flow
February 1, 2017 – There are various ways of knowing what’s ahead when you’re stuck in traffic: Dynamic Message Signs, radio reports, real-time traffic info and apps. But the information is only as good as the data, and Continental recently took steps to help improve traffic flow data by becoming a strategic partner with the Urban Software Institute. Founded […] [Continue Reading]