[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Are you being purposely obtuse here? Surely you can understand that an 80% drop in market would have a considerable effect on automakers?

Unless they replaced it with an alternate business model like running a TaaS.

You know this thread is about disruptive technology, right? We're talking about the ability for this new technology to disrupt the traditional business landscape.

The CEO said that while Ford's core business still has growth potential, especially overseas, mobility services like Chariot could decrease car usage in major urban areas.

"That's why we're embracing the sharing and the services part of our business, because we think it will allow us to grow and compensate for any kind of detriment we see in the actual number of vehicles in downtown areas," Fields said.

He also said that the acquisition is "completely aligned with what I call our 'why' of our company, which is all about making people's lives better and changing the way the world moves."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/09/ford-...p-chariot.html

The transportation services market is presently dominated by traditional taxi cab companies, disruptive multi-billion dollar private firms such as Uber and Lyft, and assorted smaller startups. Traditional automakers are exploring rival ventures, including Ford's own ZipCar-like test trial in the U.K., called GoDrive, and GM's car-sharing project in Chicago, New York, and Europe, dubbed Maven.

The race to develop driverless cars is also heating up in the auto world. On Friday, GM (GM, +0.93%) said it is buying Cruise Automation, a three-year-old, 40-person startup known for its autonomous vehicle software. A source with knowledge of the deal told Fortune's Dan Primack and Kirsten Korosec that the terms of the deal exceeded $1 billion.

Toyota (TM, +0.20%) this week said it is hiring the entirety of the workforce at Jaybridge Robotics, another automation software firm. The Mass.-based business consists of 16 researchers who have been tapped to work on the company's self-driving vehicle projects.

Ford's new mobility unit will be based alongside its research labs, also in Palo Alto, Calif. The research team, which has grown to 100 employees from 15 when it was created in 2012, has been developing autonomous driving tech as well."We're very clearly going from an auto company to an auto and mobility company," Fields told Fortune. "This is just another manifestation of how we're organizing the company, not only to keep core businesses running and strong, but aggressively to go after these unmet opportunities in the mobility services area."

http://fortune.com/2016/03/11/ford-s...steelcase-ceo/