Shanghai, China: Shanghai is a city with 24 million people – frequently blanketed in smog from coal power plants and endless construction – so it is fitting that here, at the inaugural Consumer Electronics Show Asia, motor companies are giving an idea of how they are working to deal with problems of congestion and pollution.
While the most visible technological innovation in the automotive space is arguably in self-driving cars (and Audi was on hand at CES Asia to show off an autonomous version of its R8 e-tron electric vehicle), even the smartest computers won't help you in a total gridlock, and so finding a solution to congestion is foremost on many automakers' minds.
For Ford, which announced a range of experiments and pilot programs at CES Asia designed to help solve environmental and crowding issues, a key to the problem is rethinking the idea of parking.
"Thirty per cent of congestion is caused by people looking for parking spaces", says Ford's head of research for electrical and electronic systems, James Buczkowski, "so there's a strong motivation to figure out that part of the problem".
One of the experiments that Ford (several executives from which echoed the mantra that the company is no longer just an automobile business, but also a "mobility" business) is undertaking is into whether the sensors and technology already baked into our cars could eventually be collated into a kind of map to guide drivers to the best area for parking.
In the meantime the company is also introducing an on-demand car-sharing pilot program in London, which functions like the bike-hire systems seen in many countries, so drivers who come to the city by other modes of transport can take a car and later return it to a hire station. It offers "a one-way trip with guaranteed parking".
Buczkowski says one of the biggest challenges in expanding on-demand services like this is getting the cars where people want them, when they want them, and the eventual solution Ford is working on involves "autonomous repositioning", where cars would drive themselves to wait for their passengers.
The cars we drive are themselves increasingly connected and filled with tech, and for Ford that ranges from dashboards that can use either Apple Car Play or Android Auto (or Ford's own Sync platform) to provide in-car entertainment, to the emergency assist feature that uses the driver's own phone to call for help and give accident details to emergency services.
Joseph Beiser, director of connected vehicles and services for Asia and Europe, says that while Ford cars will be interfacing with an increasing amount of user data and devices, the company is not in the business of exploiting that connection.
"We're not going to give that data away to anyone else unless the user explicitly consents to that," he says, adding that in his eyes the data is always owned by the user.
"It's more about trying to be the steward of the user's data, so our energy is spent trying to protect that data."
He also says the ability to update the new cars' software via Wi-Fi (or via USB in older models) means you won't need to get a new car every time you get a new device, and any security threats that emerge can be swiftly dealt with.
Ford's major environmental announcement at the show was a partnering with tech and power companies Haier, Delta and Trina Solar to develop a "working framework" for Chinese families to reduce their carbon footprint with a combination of affordable electric vehicles, smart appliances and renewable power.
The program, which is called MyEnergi Lifestyle and has a goal of cutting China's CO2 emissions by 45 per cent, is already running in the US and is expected to continue rolling out globally.
As Ford branches out beyond car-making, Buczkowski says a key aim for mobility companies will be to find viable businesses in moving people from point A to point B, even when cities become too crowded for cars to be an option and traditional petrol- and gas-driven cars become untenable.
"The goal is really to be part of a solution that cuts across all kinds of transportation … to get the person from where they are to where they want to be", he said.
The writer travelled to CES Asia as a guest of Ford
