Whereas Google had to jump through a bunch of regulatory hoops in order to test out its self-driving cars on public roads, the Michigan Department of Transportation, the University of Michigan, and a consortium of fifteen automakers decided to just build a fake city. Known as MCity, this 32-acre part of Ann Arbor has been designed to offer automakers a safe area to test their self-driving technology without having to worry about civilians, and Ford is going to be the first to use it.
Ford is ready to take its self-driving car program to the next level. The car maker said on Friday that it is the first automaker to test its autonomous vehicles at a MCity, a 32-acre faux city located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While Ford has been developing its autonomous technology for more than a decade, the move to begin testing its technology at MCity shows the automaker is ramping up its efforts to take the technology to market. “Testing Ford’s autonomous vehicle fleet at Mcity provides another challenging, yet safe, urban environment to repeatedly check and hone these new technologies,” said Raj Nair, Ford’s vice president of global product development, in a press statement. “This is an important step in making millions of people’s lives better and improving their mobility.” Ford has traditionally kept pretty quiet about its self-driving plans, not revealing any concrete dates as to when to expect driverless tech coming to its production models.
