After investing a significant amount of money into autonomous vehicle technology company Argo AI (along with Volkswagen), Ford decided that, back in 2022, Level 4 and 5 technology wouldn’t be viable or profitable anytime soon. As such, it pivoted to Level 2 and 3 autonomous vehicle technology, using bits leftover from the now-defunct outfit to create a new company called Latitude AI tasked with developing its next-generation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). However, it doesn’t seem as if Ford hasn’t completely given up on the idea of Level 4 tech, either.
“We are on track in level three and we’re evaluating other companies, level four. I won’t go into any more detail than that, but I think we’re on track on our ADAS,” Ford CEO Jim Farley stated during the automaker’s Q1 2025 earnings call with investors. This comes as a bit of a surprise given Ford’s prior abandonment of that sort of technology, but a few years have passed since then, so it’s quite feasible that it views such an endeavor possible at this point in time – or, at least, the near future.
Currently, Ford is developing its own Level 3 ADAS technology in-house, as Farley revealed while speaking at this year’s Wolfe Research Auto, Auto Tech, and Semiconductor Conference, which would allow drivers to go hands- and eye-free while features like BlueCruise are engaged on the highway. Farley previously stated that he believes Ford could have Level 3 autonomy ready for customers as early as 2026, which would make it one of the first mass market automakers to do so.
However, Farley also added that L3 tech won’t be offered in the company’s under-development low-cost EVs, since adding the components necessary to support it would be too costly. Such an admission makes sense given Ford’s laser focus on making more affordable EVs to better compete with its burgeoning Chinese rivals, coupled with its desire to make those models less complex.
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