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Bloomberg's Naughton on Ford's Plan for Autonomous Car (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Let's bring in Keith not Now. He's Auto editor at
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  Speaker 1: Large for Bloomberg News, joining us from our Motor City
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  Speaker 1: Detroit bureau in Southfield, Michigan. So, Keith, what do you
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  Speaker 1: take away from what Mark Fields just told our own
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  Speaker 1: Emily Chang? Yeah, I think you know, what Mark is
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  Speaker 1: trying to do is sort of carve a distinct path
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  Speaker 1: for Ford. It's been a little unclear, you know, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know what their strategy was, and so they're taking
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of everyone else's strategy. They're they're going
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  Speaker 1: to go you know, completely autonomous, no steering wheel, much
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  Speaker 1: like the Google has said they will do with their
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  Speaker 1: their car. They want to do it though within the
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  Speaker 1: confines of ride hailing and ride sharing, which is very
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  Speaker 1: similar to what GM is looking at with with Lift,
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  Speaker 1: which had invested in UH. And they want to do
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  Speaker 1: it by one, which is the same time frame that
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  Speaker 1: BMW has announcer it's driver less car. So they've they've
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  Speaker 1: taken a little bit of each and UH come up
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  Speaker 1: with their own plan. UM. You know, it's ambitious because
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  Speaker 1: they don't have the big partners that GM has or
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  Speaker 1: even BMW. They've aligned with Mobile I and Intel, UM
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  Speaker 1: and and they ford tried to align with Google and
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  Speaker 1: ended up not doing a deal with them, and instead
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  Speaker 1: Google is partnering with Chrysler. Hey, Keith, can you tell
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  Speaker 1: us about a company called the Velodine ldar and maybe
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  Speaker 1: just give us some details about what is it? A
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  Speaker 1: bus or a mini bus that I believe was showcased
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  Speaker 1: in India recently using Velodine ldar technology and it's completely autonomous, right.
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  Speaker 1: You know? The UM the thing that that Valodine does
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  Speaker 1: for just about everybody UM is is the light our radar,
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  Speaker 1: which you know. The way that that works is that
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  Speaker 1: it kind of bounces light off objects lidar. I'm just
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  Speaker 1: gonna give you the that's the acronym l I D
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  Speaker 1: a R light detection and ranging sensors exactly, and so
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  Speaker 1: UM it gives the vehicle the ability to sense its
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  Speaker 1: environment in a three sixty degree way UM in conjunction
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  Speaker 1: with cameras and traditional radar, so it creates a vision
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  Speaker 1: for the car UM and and then it can drive itself.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very expensive component. They're trying to bring the
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  Speaker 1: cost of it down by getting more and more customers
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  Speaker 1: because Veladine won't just supply forward even though they have
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  Speaker 1: struck this deal or by do they're going to continue
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  Speaker 1: to supply all the world's automakers, um because they do
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  Speaker 1: sort of have the state of the art light ar
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  Speaker 1: at the moment. So you know, um Keith, even though
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  Speaker 1: Mark Fields kind of seem to want to push back,
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  Speaker 1: like you know, the technology companies they're not just going
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  Speaker 1: to rush in. Are sure they're rushing in, but the
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  Speaker 1: car companies forward is here the fact that they're doubling
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  Speaker 1: their workforce in Palo Alto with the research center. You know,
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  Speaker 1: they're increasing the size this facility hugely sixfold actually according
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  Speaker 1: to your story, to over three buildings. It does seem
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  Speaker 1: to indicate that Mark Fields realizes that having a presence
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  Speaker 1: in you know, in the in the heart that the
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  Speaker 1: biggest technology center in the country, if not the world,
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  Speaker 1: is important Afard Now, Yeah, and you know, as I
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  Speaker 1: was working on this story today, I got a call
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  Speaker 1: from General Motors to remind me that they have a
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  Speaker 1: Silicon Valley lab to so you know, all that detroyed
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  Speaker 1: automakers actoually just say all the automakers in general want
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  Speaker 1: to have a presence in Silicon Valley, which I think
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  Speaker 1: demonstrates the importance of that hotbed of innovation. They're trying
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  Speaker 1: to become a part of it. Um, they are still
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  Speaker 1: a small part of it when you look at you know,
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  Speaker 1: what Google and Apple are doing in in that space,
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  Speaker 1: and and from Wall Streets perspective, you know, whatever Ford
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  Speaker 1: is doing or GM is doing isn't enough because their
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  Speaker 1: stock is down despite record profits, and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: that is anxiety over whether or not the traditional automakers,
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  Speaker 1: the legacy automakers, can embrace this this changing reality of
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  Speaker 1: more ability. Keith, before we all jump on the autonomous
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  Speaker 1: car bandwagon, wondering if you could tell us a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more about David Hall. He's the head of Velodne Lidar,
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  Speaker 1: He's the founder, and also maybe just give us a
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  Speaker 1: little idea of how this technology, like automated technology can
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  Speaker 1: be used not just in the automobile industry, but in
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  Speaker 1: factory automation as well. Yeah, I mean it's a it's
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  Speaker 1: a really fascinating technology that is you know, very advanced,
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  Speaker 1: very expensive, and it does give you this this um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, vision of all elements of things that are
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  Speaker 1: around you, behind you, um. And then it enables robots
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  Speaker 1: to move about in a way that they don't. They
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  Speaker 1: don't bump into things. They can avoid things. In the
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  Speaker 1: case of an autonomous car, it's avoiding people and vehicles
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  Speaker 1: and buildings and uh and it's it's really um it's
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  Speaker 1: like the central nervous system of an autonomous car and uh.
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  Speaker 1: And you know it is essential to developing these things
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  Speaker 1: with with the appropriate safety. How big of an issue
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  Speaker 1: has it been? Was it when we learned after the
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  Speaker 1: fact that there had been a crash involving a Tesla
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  Speaker 1: right where the car couldn't read the fact that there
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  Speaker 1: was a large truck on the road ahead of it
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  Speaker 1: because the way the light was bouncing back. It made
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  Speaker 1: some news. It seems like it's died down. Was that
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  Speaker 1: a setback? It is just like, oh, well, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to have a few of those on the path to
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  Speaker 1: a fully autonomous vehicle, right. I spoke to John Kraftschick,
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  Speaker 1: Google's CEO of its self driving car program, about this recently,
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  Speaker 1: and the thing he tries to make very clear is that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the autopilot on Tesla is not a fully
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  Speaker 1: autonomous system. It doesn't have the light hour that we
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  Speaker 1: were just describing. It has cameras, and those cameras UM,
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  Speaker 1: which were made by Mobile I did not have the
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  Speaker 1: ability to see cross traffic. That that's something that's not
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  Speaker 1: going to arrive in their capabilities for another two years.
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  Speaker 1: So the system was really being pushed beyond its limits
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  Speaker 1: UM either by the driver, by the company that's in dispute,
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  Speaker 1: but UM. But that was taking a driver assist technology
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  Speaker 1: and trying to use it as if it were a
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  Speaker 1: fully autonomous technology and the results were tragic. And Keith,
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  Speaker 1: just to give you a couple of seconds here, this
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  Speaker 1: technology can also be used with unmanned aerial vehicles, right
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  Speaker 1: like drones. Sure, I mean that's that's the ability of
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  Speaker 1: this three D surround vision that you can get when
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  Speaker 1: you deploy these these three technologies. But you know what
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  Speaker 1: they what they require also is you know, some high
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  Speaker 1: speed processors, which is why I see Intel involved in
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  Speaker 1: this UM to really crunch all the data that comes
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  Speaker 1: in through these sensors and tell drones or vehicles where
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  Speaker 1: to go. Thank you very much for spending time with
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  Speaker 1: us and in lightening us. Keith Norton is Auto editor
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  Speaker 1: at Large for Bloomberg News, telling us about autonomous driving
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  Speaker 1: as well as new technology to give that three D
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  Speaker 1: and sixty degree View shares a FOURD down six tenths
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  Speaker 1: of a percent of twelve dollars thirty five cents. We
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  Speaker 1: take you through to the close. Next, this is Bloomberg.