The Future of Auto: Time Back

I had a great conversation last week with Joanna Stern at the The Wall Street Journal ’s Future of Everything Festival. We talked about how vehicles will increasingly deliver experiences that change how customers work and live.

Take Ford Pro – our nearly $50B revenue business totally dedicated to commercial and government customers. We support the businesses that drive our economy and provide the critical services we all rely on – from farmers and miners, to utilities, delivery drivers, and first responders. Small businesses make up 44% of the GDP in the U.S. Yet all too often, the conversation about the #futureofwork focuses on hybrid schedules or open floor plans and ignores the hard working men and women whose office is a truck or a van.?

With Ford Pro we integrate everything these businesses need into a single platform. Not just world-class vehicles, but software services to manage their fleets, a?mobile service network to keep them up and running, and electrification solutions to decarbonize their business.?

Imagine you’re a plumber with five employees, each with their own van. If just one vehicle goes down, it's a real problem. Now, everything is digitized – on one screen with proactive alerts when service is due. For maintenance, you used to send two employees on the clock to the dealership. Now, we have over 1,000 mobile service units that come to you – where and when it’s convenient. Soon, we’ll be able to predict when parts need replacement through prognostics and coordinate service before you know there’s a problem. Time saved!

Our new vehicles will use sensors and cameras to remotely monitor and optimize each truck and van, creating valuable new capabilities – much like a smart home today. They’ll be fully updateable and get better and smarter over time. And we’re already applying learnings from our Ford Pro customers to strengthen the everyday retail customer experience.

We’re having a lot of fun building this future! We’re successfully recruiting incredible folks from top technology companies and developing the next generation of talent to power the automotive industry. We’re also transforming the old Michigan Central Station here in Detroit into a campus powering the future of global mobility. And we’re creating a new generation of green manufacturing at facilities like BlueOval City in West Tennessee and the Cologne Electric Vehicle Center in Germany.

If the idea of building something new excites you – something that transforms a tool billions of people use every day – then get in touch. We’re always interested in hearing from passionate, skilled people who want to help change people’s lives forever and do the most exciting work of their careers.