In April 2016, Uber announced the acquisition of Otto, a San Francisco-based startup that has developed a kit that can turn any big rig into a self-driving truck. The Otto technology enables complete autonomy on highways: trucks can navigate, stay in their lane, and slow or stop in response to traffic conditions completely without human intervention. Otto's equipment currently costs about $30,000, but that is certain to fall significantly in the coming years. Otto is by no means alone. Massive automated vehicles are already commonly used to move materials for the Australian mining industry.

Congress just stepped into the robocar game. In the past two days, a pair of senators started drafting legislation to advance autonomous vehicles, and the House Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection held a two-hour hearing exploring how on the tech might be deployed. For your elected officials, it's a considerable, if tentative, step into the future of transportation. Small numbers of robocars already roam the San Francisco Bay Area and other cities, and you'll probably start riding in them within a few years as Uber and others commercialize the technology. Everything is racing ahead of a regulatory structure ill-equipped to usher in this change.

My thirties started off in countries ravaged by environmental destruction and dictatorships. Back then, I was a journalist for National Geographic, spending most of my time abroad, even though I still called Los Angeles--my birth city--home. In the 100 countries I visited, I reported on some harrowing stories: the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the near total deforestation of Paraguay, and the tense nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan. I always hoped my words and on-camera television commentary brought some sanity and peace to the chaos. While on assignment in Vietnam near the demilitarized zone, a near-miss with a landmine that could have been catastrophic sent me back home to the safety of the United States.

Ford Motor Co. says it's investing $1 billion over the next five years in a Pittsburgh startup called Argo AI to develop the virtual-driver system for Ford's autonomous vehicles. Argo AI was founded only a few weeks ago by CEO Bryan Salesky, who directed hardware development for Google's self-driving cars; and chief operating officer Peter Rander, who led Uber's program to develop self-driving cars. Salesky and Rander, as well as other Argo AI executives, have worked on robotics and AI at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which helps explain the placement of the startup's headquarters. The technology coming out of the collaboration could be licensed to other companies, Ford President and CEO Mark Fields said today in a statement announcing the deal. "We believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Ford's leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term and by creating technology that could be licensed to others in the future," Fields said.

Ford Motor Co. is investing $1 billion in a months-old startup founded by two pioneers in the nascent autonomous vehicle sector. The Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company Argo AI will develop the brains -- specifically, a virtual driver system -- for the fully autonomous vehicles Ford has promised to bring to market in 2021. Founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander are former leaders of the self-driving car teams at Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. "This is a unique partnership," Mark Fields, Ford's chief executive officer, said in an interview. "A lot of tech companies are looking for customers and a lot of OEMs are looking for technology partners. We are getting expertise, and Argo AI is getting a customer in Ford."

One of the oldest automakers in the United States is making a billion-dollar bet that one day, owning a car may not be a necessity of American life. Ford Motor announced on Friday its plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence start-up formed in December that is focused on developing autonomous vehicle technology. The move is Ford's biggest effort to move into self-driving car research. Argo AI will develop the technology exclusively for Ford at first, and then plans to license its technology to others. The investment is also a way for Ford, which is more than century old, to tap into Silicon Valley talent and make headway in a competitive space.

Over the next five years, Ford will pour $1 billion into an artificial-intelligence company tasked with developing the technology that one day will drive its autonomous vehicles. The technology also could be licensed to other automakers, executives said. Pittsburgh-based Argo AI was founded late last year by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, who previously worked on self-driving-car initiatives at Google and Uber, respectively. The company will include staff members at Ford who have been developing its virtual driver system for the past several years. In a phone call Friday, chief executive Mark Fields said the investment will help Ford bring its self-driving cars to market by the company's previously stated goal of 2021.

Dealers are likely looking at the flat or declining sales forecast for this year and figuring out how they will make up for that loss of new car sales profits. They should also be thinking longer term, because the entire nature of car ownership will have changed dramatically in just a bit over a decade, per KPMG. Personal ownership has peaked in the U.S., or will in the next few years, and be replaced by mobility services, KPMG principle Jono Anderson, tells Automotive Buy Sell Report. Mobility services include ride hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, but also, increasingly, will be based on fleets of autonomous vehicles. Mobility services represent about seven percent of all miles driven today, he says. That will increase to 20 percent by 2030.

Ford Motor Co. has bought a majority share in a small artificial intelligence start-up that will help the automaker get driverless vehicles on the road, Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields announced Friday. Argo AI, based in Pittsburgh, will provide the "brains" for virtual driving systems. Argo becomes a Ford subsidiary and will work intimately with Ford engineers to integrate driverless software with sensors and other hardware systems that will be built into Ford vehicles, Fields said. Ford will invest $1 billion in Argo over the next five years. For now the company will focus exclusively on Ford, but in the future the company could license its driverless technology, Fields said.

Ford Motor Co. is investing $1 billion in a months-old startup founded by two pioneers in the nascent autonomous vehicle sector. The Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company Argo AI will develop the brains -- specifically, a virtual driver system -- for the fully autonomous vehicles Ford has promised to bring to market in 2021. Founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander are former leaders of the self-driving car teams at Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Uber Technologies Inc. "This is a unique partnership," Mark Fields, Ford's chief executive officer, said in an interview. "A lot of tech companies are looking for customers and a lot of OEMs are looking for technology partners. We are getting expertise, and Argo AI is getting a customer in Ford." Salesky, who worked on the self-driving car project at Google, and Rander, who held a similar role at Uber, have no other backers.