Ford to Acquire Chariot Van Service

Ford Motor Co. F -2.75 % unveiled on Friday the latest part of its vision for future: bicycles and buses. The 113-year-old auto maker, whose Model T spawned a billion-plus horseless carriages, is racing other auto makers and upstarts such as Apple, Google and Uber toward a world transformed by innovations such as self-driving cars. Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields on Wednesday announced the auto maker had agreed to acquire Chariot, a private shuttle service popular in the Bay Area, and that it would sponsor the city's version of New York's Citi Bike. Blue Ford GoBike bicycles will become ubiquitous starting next year as the San Francisco program run by Motivate ramps up to 7,000 bikes in 2018 from 700 today. The moves illustrate Ford's effort to provide solutions for big-city congestion, Mr. Fields told the crowd.