Ford Exec: You Won’t Be Able to Buy a Driverless Car Until After 2025

Although Ford said it would deliver fully autonomous cars to ride-sharing services by 2021, the automaker has yet to reveal a specific timeline for the consumer adoption of its driverless technology. In a new report, a Ford executive offers up a slightly more precise estimate for when we might expect to purchase an autonomous car.

Consumers will be able to buy a fully autonomous vehicle sometime between 2026 and 2031, says Ken Washington, Ford’s vice president of research and advanced engineering. “It’s really hard to guess and predict the pace of the technology,” he said during his keynote address at the SAE WCX World Congress Experience. “Our current view is the adoption rates will be relatively gradual.”

Ford had already admitted that individual consumers would have to wait several years for autonomous car technology to come their way. Previous comments from CEO Mark Fields had suggested a 2025 rollout of robot cars for personal use.

Ford’s autonomous vehicles will not include a steering wheel or pedals and will reach Level 4 autonomy as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers. This is one step below Level 5, which offers complete autonomy in every conceivable driving situation.

A recent study by Navigant Research named Ford as the top developer of autonomous car technology. The automaker ranked in first place ahead of 17 other companies that are working on driverless tech, including General Motors, Nissan, Daimler, Tesla and others.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription required)

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