Ford Motor Co. has withdrawn an application to use a vehicle with autonomous capabilities because development isn’t close enough to commercialization.
Autonomous driving is not yet close to profitable mass production. Therefore, Ford has scaled back its development efforts. The decision, described in an unreleased notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), comes after the startup closed Argo AI, that from ford and Volkswagen was funded.
Ford only wants to implement autonomous driving in a profitable business model. According to the company, according to the Reuters news agency, that is not yet in sight. The document declaring the intention was not due to be released until today. It also explains that more success is seen in the development of assistance systems.
The withdrawn application was submitted to NHTSA in July 2021 and provided a temporary exemption from several state vehicle safety standards, allowing them to be equipped with autonomous driving capabilities. At that time, a two-year exemption was requested to further develop and provide Level 4.
Now you want to focus more on Level 2 and Level 3. You don’t need an exception for that. However, VW remains on the ball with the development of autonomous driving.