Ford has been working on developing its own autonomous vehicle technology for years now, though those efforts have shifted more away from higher levels of autonomy as of late. This is also true of most of its competitors, each of whom have been trying to perfect the art of self-driving vehicles for some time, a task that’s proving more difficult than originally thought. As for Ford, it apparently had the chance to license Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology years ago, but according to CEO Jim Farley, it ultimately opted not to do so, for one very big reason.
Back in 2023, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company was willing to license its autonomous technology to other automakers, and during its Q4 earnings call with investors that same year, he noted that Tesla had been in talks with more than one company to do precisely that. However, Musk didn’t name any specific companies at that time, though we now know that Ford was one of them.
This news comes to us from Ford CEO Jim Farley himself, who revealed that The Blue Oval did discuss the potential of licensing Tesla’s Autopilot/FSD tech previously when speaking during the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival. Farley went on to explain that those talks ultimately didn’t go anywhere, largely due to the fact that he believes Waymo is using superior tech. That boils down specifically to the fact that the executive believes that Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology is key to making fully-autonomous vehicles function properly.
“Where the camera will be completely blinded, the LiDAR system will see exactly what’s in front of you,” Farley said. As for Tesla, it isn’t using LiDAR in its current suite of autonomous tech, which is why Farley opted not to pursue that relationship. Meanwhile, Waymo has quickly seized control of the burgeoning robotaxi market, as Ford Authority previously reported, while Ford continues to expand the availability of its BlueCruise feature.
Taking a page out of the Maverick's book.
All that Electric Spice looks pretty good, if we do say so ourselves.
It has remained with the original owner's family since new, too.
Three words: tech, advertising, and business.
Another nicely kept example of the newer Ranger.
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Tesla doesn't have autonomous tech. What they have is marketing and baldfaced lies that regularly kill their owners. But Farley is so stupid he apparently doesnt know it's all grade A certified bull shite.