Ford will bring Google’s Android Automotive into millions of vehicles from 2023
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Google and Ford announced a long-term strategic partnership on Monday to drive the digital transformation of the auto company. And: Android ends up in all Detroiters’ cars.
The cooperation between the two companies will make Google the preferred cloud provider for Ford, which will be able to draw on the tech giant’s expertise in the areas of data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). From 2023, millions of upcoming Ford and Lincoln vehicles in all price ranges will also be operated with Android. The partnership is initially set for six years.
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Ford brings Android Automotive into its vehicles
While Ford is still using Version 4 of its infotainment system Sync in its vehicles such as the Mach-E for the time being, Ford will completely replace it with Google’s Android automotive platform from calendar year 2023. Among other things, Google Maps will become the main navigation – including real-time traffic information, automatic rerouting and more.
The Ford Sync infotainment system will be replaced by Android from 2023. (Photo: Ford)
The voice-based Google Assistant will also be on board so that the driver can concentrate on the traffic. Even if Android Automotive is the main system on board, it should still be possible to use Apple’s Carplay and Alexa, according to Ford.
As on Android smartphones, the Google Play Store serves as the main point of contact for apps, for example to consume music, podcasts, audiobooks and more. According to Google, Ford and third-party developers will also be able to offer apps for “a constantly improved and increasingly personalized driving experience”.
Ford emphasizes that the user experience will differ greatly from the Android automotive version, which is used in the Polestar 2 (test), for example. Ford can adapt the system together with Google according to their own ideas.
How the Sync brand will be used by Ford in the future will be decided at a later date. It is not unreasonable that Sync 4 could be the last version of Ford’s infotainment system. At least for the next six years.
Ford is not the first major auto company to use Android in the car. In addition to the Geely subsidiaries Polestar and Volvo, the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance had already announced in 2018 that it would rely on Android Automotive, followed by General Motors in 2019.
A team of Ford and Google employees will work together on digital solutions in the future
David McClelland, Ford Vice President, Strategy and Partnerships and Google’s Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian talk about the longstanding partnership. (Screenshot: t3n; Google)
The cooperation does not only affect cars, instead the entire car company is to be digitized and rebuilt with the help of Google’s cloud and expertise. For this purpose, the two companies are setting up a cooperation group with Team Upshift. The transformation encompasses every imaginable sector – from the office to buying a car to supply chain management.
The focus is, among other things, on the implementation of data-driven business models that are intended to ensure that customers receive real-time notifications such as maintenance requests or trade-in warnings, according to the announcement. Furthermore, the modernization and acceleration of product development are the focus of the transformation.
The first cooperation between Google and Ford did not materialize
It is the first partnership between the companies involved, but the two large US corporations were already at the negotiating table between 2015 and 2016 to work together to develop self-driving cars to agree. At that time, however, no agreement was reached. Instead, Ford took over the startup Argo AI in 2017, which was founded by Google’s former hardware boss for autonomous driving, Bryan Salesky. In 2019, Volkswagen invested US $ 2.6 billion in Argo AI as part of its partnership with Ford to advance autonomous driving.
