Sometimes it is a bit difficult to understand big companies, and this is the case with Ford. At the end of last year Ford closed the Argos company that was dedicated to autonomous driving of vehicles, and a few months later Ford itself announces that it is going to create a division for autonomous driving. Which is difficult to understand, and gives us one more example of how these big companies waste their money.
In order not to do things completely wrong, they have hired more than 500 workers who previously worked at Argos, since they already have experience in autonomous driving issues. And that is positive.
They have called this new division Latitude AI , it will be located in Pittsburgh, where Argos used to be, and they will develop assisted driving systems to install in future Ford models.
In principle, it seems that they are not looking for fully autonomous driving, but rather to generate aids that serve to make driving easier for drivers. And that will be sold as "extras" to offer in the new Ford cars.
It is clear that fully autonomous driving (level 4 driving) is not easy. Waymo has been working and investing money in the subject for more than 10 years, many others have started on the subject, and many others have abandoned it. And it seems that at the moment nobody is making money with the offers of autonomous taxis in various cities around the world.
From what Ford and others are doing, many companies are concentrating on getting level 3 driving aids, where the driver is responsible for what happens in the car. That is easier to achieve, and also automobile companies avoid the "problem" of liability for the accident.
With Level 3 driving, the responsibility is always the driver and the company washes its hands. With a level 4, fully autonomous driving, it is not clear if the responsibility lies with the driver or with the company that has manufactured and sold the vehicle. And those are big words from the point of view of civil liability in the event of an accident.
Mercedes is doing something similar and already offers Driving Level 3 for its S and EQS model cars, and is the only one to offer it at the moment. Although I suppose that others will soon do so, and Ford is already trying with this new division (Latitude AI) that it has created.
EN 
ES_ES 