Ford Motor Co. is expanding its business to include shuttle and bicycle services in select cities as it moves beyond selling cars and trucks.
Dearborn automaker on Friday made a series of announcements in San Francisco. Among them: Ford will acquire shuttle service Chariot, and expand it from San Francisco to five other cities globally over the next 18 months.
It will partner with bike-share service Motivate to add stations and 7,000 Ford-branded bicycles in the Bay Area by the end of 2018. And it is launching a “City Solutions” team as part of its Smart Mobility subsidiary to work with governments.
What we’re creating here is an ecosystem and working with cities to help solve how the citizens get around,” President and CEO Mark Fields told The Detroit News.
Ford has been methodical in how it’s addressed alternative mobility options like ride-sharing, as well as autonomous and connected-car technologies. Nearly two years ago, it launched a series of “smart mobility” experiments around the world. It’s now beginning to implement some of those experiments that it feels make the most business sense.
“Whatever business we’re in, it’s really important for us to have a path to sustainable profitability,” Fields said. “We feel this is a great opportunity.”
Chariot, a shuttle service founded in 2014, operates about 100 Ford Transits along 28 different routes in San Francisco. The company crowd-sources its routes based on ride demand, and will eventually use real-time data and advanced software algorithms to determine the most efficient routes.
“It’s helping cities solve a problem — the issue of congestion,” Fields said. “It’s also really convenient for customers. Shuttles offer taxi-like convenience at the cost of mass transit.”
Ford has been experimenting with shuttle service around the country. Last year it launched a pilot program for employees on its Dearborn campus, and earlier this year became the exclusive vehicle provider for Ride KC, a shuttle service run by Bridj.
The acquisition of Chariot doesn’t mean Ford’s ruled out expanding into ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft.
“As we move toward becoming an auto and mobility company, we’re looking at a lot of things,” Fields said. “Shuttles are very, very interesting for us and a big business opportunity. The same can be said for ride-hailing. (The shuttle service) is not to the exclusion of that.”
Ford has not announced the five cities it will expand to, but Fields said they will include places outside of the United States.
The automaker did not disclose a purchase price and said the deal was expected to close “imminently.”
Ford next year will offer its own bike service in the San Francisco Bay Area through Motivate, a company that operates and manages different bike-share fleets in 12 cities globally. The automaker will call the service Ford GoBike.
Read more of the original article at The Detroit News.
