Gadgetory

hey this is Josh from the verge and i'm sitting here with the ford CEO alan mulally and the CTO of the company Paul Mascarenas they say that right perfect okay got it I've been I've been practicing that 45 minutes straight and got it and I'm excited to have you guys here first up because we usually don't sit down with the with men of your stature I mean CEO and CTO Ford that's mean I could really affect the outcome of a great American right depending on what I say if I suggest something really great to you or really terrible but we're at CES 2012 and you guys are here what are you here talking about why are you here why have you come from Detroit to be to be in in Las Vegas well first of all josh is good to see you again and it really is need to be here this is our fifth year being invited to the Consumer Electronics Show and remember that we have been carved the cccs both were the focus and also with the Taurus and now today we just revealed to the public for the very first time the new ford fusion hybrid vehicle and what's really neat about that is the electronics but also the integration of sync and MyFord and the applications go with that to allow each of us to now have an integrated life with our electric vehicles and the response has been really really neat yeah and and so you've got you know you've got a number of announcements and stuff that you're talking about right now you know you're doing sink tell me about sink and why it's important to you what is the what is the thinking behind it and and and and and how is it how is it changing the way that you guys are doing what you do with your car is what you build them knowing about I might introduce it and Paul has great perspective too but we took a point of view about six years ago that the the automobile was going to be a mobile application we could see where the digital technology was going we could see what the entertainment was going the software associated with the safety features with fuel economy it was going to be a mobile app so we initially started with Microsoft and built a baseline automobile platform and then we added my Ford and on it and different applications then especially we want to focus on on keeping your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel so we went to voice activation member was relatively new yeah maybe 100 commands at the time but we knew that if you could seamlessly connect each of us and our smart devices to the internet but also do it safely that that would be not only a reason to buy a ford vehicle but it would be a want to buy a ford vehicle and so that's the way we started we've been improving that capability over time and now nearly fifty percent of all people to buy a ford vehicle by sync and MyFord and once they've operated seventy-four percent recommended to their friends and would only get their next car if it has it so you're saying fifty percent of people who go into a dealer they say I'm buying a car you can get sync do you wanted they say all right I'll take absolutely so that's not actually tillable as well they said they say sync my foot touch was a reason that I bought that we come in so we look at it as a reason to buy and just to give you a doctor point we've sold over 4 million vehicles already equipped with with sink so you know we've talked about the democratization of technology which is a term we like the vehicle is the ultimate mobile device right so being able to bring this really affordable technology to millions of customers around the world is part of vision yeah and and and you're doing I mean you've got speech recognition technology in there that's a tough one to crack I mean it's tough to get a computer to really recognize what you're saying what kind of innovation are you doing in that in that space I mean that seems like it would be a big focus I mean are there partnerships or technologies that you're looking at or that you're using right now that you think of articulate yeah great great question and of course the vehicle itself is a challenging environment the voice recognition anyway because you've got a lot of background noise so a couple of things one is partnering with the very very best in the industry so our partner nuance developing the voice engine and continuing to upgrade and as they bring in improvements we can introduce those into our vehicle with software upgrades right as we're doing right now with a my fault touch the second thing is just some things that we do inside the vehicle itself so directionality of the microphones for example correct positioning really making sure that's very focused on driver but it really comes down to just partnering with the best in the industry right and people like Microsoft people like new on some of the app developers that we want to quit so you know sink has the the kind of growth of these types of products and cars has dovetailed with a pretty trying time for the audio industry here in America do you feel in any way that I mean we're starting to see a ton of technology come to vehicles I mean cars are obviously a very advanced piece of technology but also a very old piece of technology and in the grand scheme of what weird what you know this team deals with day to day has do you feel like zinc has given you an edge in terms of revitalizing or kind of reshaping what for it is over for the you know the last year absolutely you know we we really five or six years ago we really tried to come to a point of view about what customers would really value really value and pay for and want and that came down to four major things one is quality they want the most fuel-efficient vehicle they want the safest vehicle but they also want to be connected seamlessly to the Internet and the reason that we chose to not embed the capability in the vehicle is because we wanted to move with the consumer electronic speed you to have one integrated life the same the same my communication devices you use outside the car you use inside the car then we add our value by managing the interface with the voice recognition and the interface with all the vehicle systems and the response to that has been tremendous it's a reason to buy ford has been leading that and which is also the reason that we were I think been so successful at consumer electronics because we're partnering with we kept an open architecture we're partnering with everybody and I bring these applications in but the neatest thing to your point as we move to more and more electrified vehicles then all of a sudden you have a wonderful convergence of the digital technology both on the vehicle and the electrical application but also with how do you mean is your car I'm saying to come party your last you know not just about navigation it's about you at the car we're going to charge it now the charging station what's the right time to charge it so you run all those applications on your smartphone transferring that information to the car so you now have just one integrated life reckon it becomes if I could just build them that becomes an experience so the technologies that we're putting in our vehicles are an enabler to an ownership experience with their vehicle whether its connectivity whether it's the safety technologies that we put in the car the fuel efficient technologies and you know as we create this experience for our customer clearly very relevant value affordable but at the same time is differentiating our vehicles which i think is what you're asking you differentiating our vehicles from app competitors and probably the most important thing redefining our image and reputation as a company that's right you know me and and I think it has done being a part of cs and see but in the other and you've got people coming into your product from a completely different angle right you're starting from technology to then lower the vehicle so so you've got the fusion which is a hybrid yep how important is is how important our hybrids to forward moving forward and beyond that electric vehicles and you know when then what's after that I mean obviously well just I'll let you answer that one well I that it starts fall first of all with a point of view about where the world's going and we expect a fuel efficiency we really believe like I think most people that we all are going to pay more for energy going forward so what we have found now is energy prices moved up is that fuel efficiency is a reason to buy it's one of the top reason to buy a vehicle and it's interesting josh because whether you're in a fiesta sized vehicle or if you're in an f150 vehicle the consumer wants the best fuel efficiency in that vehicle in that big old class so every everything we have been doing is what can we bring to technology to continuously improve a lot of room to improve the internal combustion engine a direct fuel injection turbocharging lightweight materials aerodynamics integrated electronics all a significant improvement in the internal combustion engine then we see alternative fuels like biofuels and ethanol so we make our vehicles compatible with that and then to your point the electrification and ford strategy is so different because we are making just separate electrical demonstrators we actually electrified the entire platform so like the focus or the fusion you can get a petrol you can get a diesel you can get a hybrid you can get a plug-in hybrid with a bigger battery where you can get an all-electric vehicle with no internal combustion engine and the neatest thing about our strategy is that we build them on the same production line most of the parts are the same and with our scale now we can offer these vehicles to the consumer more affordably than anybody else so you can imagine the coming together of that technology with the sync and MyFord and be able to operate the vehicle as an ecosystem but do you see that the internal combustion engine can tell me you think that has technology to keep investing in in terms of absolute interms of refining the basically the type of car we've known for since cars absolutely and the improvement is dramatic that our turbo charging direct fuel injection today increases the fuel efficiency by thirty percent reduce the co2 by nearly twenty percent but that it's all going to be about the economics because we need to continue to make breakthroughs on the batteries we have lithium ion batteries today but these batters can wave four or five hundred pounds that can cost ten to twelve thousand dollars right so the widespread adoption of this technology is going to be based on getting the economics to be more compelling that's why we want to use our scale to be able to provide a more affordably so when when do we get to the point where the internal combustion engine is we're not using anymore where do you see I mean it's got to be a point where we say fossil fuels or at least that particular one particular type is where we're cutting ourselves off from it how far down there so this is a great question in the way with officer a global company with serving markets all around the world the different for example Europe is North America why more mature in terms of technology infrastructure to support electrification than some of the emerging markets so when we look at it you know there's years and years and years of development ahead for the internal combustion engine as we know it today whether it's the fuel efficient gasoline engines ecoboost direct injection turbocharged the high efficiency Diesel's that are the very popular in Europe so our strategy is to have a full range of efficient power trains and we're calling that strategy the power of choice and more the power of choice means is let the customer choose what is the most appropriate power train for their lifestyle right and their needs for a customer in a city center very short commutes and so electric vehicle could be the absolute perfect choice yeah and you think that do you think that'll that adoption will happen let's say here in America enemy not everywhere but it's got to start happening somewhere but doesn't today is a very small percent of our total sales is increasing you know by the end of the decade we could see ten fifteen percent of our vehicles being electrified using one of those technologies whether it's a mild hybrid stop-start a conventional hybrid when we're talking earlier Alan mentioned the fusion yeah we have two hybrids infusion we have a conventional hybrid and we have a plug-in hybrid so again depending on your usage and the type of driving style you pick the engine the best suits your needs a power of choice again and and then with those and I know you guys have to go so I'll just wrap it up but with those vehicles if they're utilizing electric in any way sink is is plugging i means playing into that that's oh absolutely that's part of the sink universe now is the controls if it's at a whole ecosystem where yeah we had the mobile application you're you can deal with your vehicle we came outside the vehicle you can check and see what you're charging is what your routes going to be so it's almost like an application to manage your life right alright last question what kind of car do you drive I Drive a different vehicle every night really either a ford vehicle josh or a competitor's vehicle because we made a commitment to the consumer five years ago that every vehicle that we made was going to be best in class and so we drive them to actually know where are you guys your own vehicles and the competitors now do you have to say you also drive the competitors vehicle do it is that it's part of the business we've drawn vehicles which I have a weekend a weekend preference I do well that's my mistake that's that's very very and my taurus i thank so much thank you so much really read a venir you thanks thanks