Austin's reputation as a city that's friendly to autonomous vehicle testing is about to get a little stronger.
Ford announced Wednesday it will begin testing its self-driving cars in Austin, and that might eventually lead to the auto giant launching a public autonomous car service. In fact, Reuters reported Ford wants to launch commercial service as soon as 2021.
Autonomous taxis may be a ways off. But Ford, which is also testing its autonomous technologies in Washington, D.C., and Miami, is making the case that Austin is an ideal candidate to be an early adopter.
"With a large university campus at its core and a vibrant, growing downtown – not to mention a dense population that’s open to ride-hailing – there is an opportunity for self-driving vehicles to perform a wide number of services while easing the burden on streets," Sherif Marakby, CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles, wrote in a blog post.
At first, Ford's vehicles will be manually driven through East Austin and downtown to 3D map its streets in preparation to let the computers drive. The company said the area provides a lot of testing opportunities since there are a lot of pedestrians, scooters and regular traffic. Ford will expand testing to other parts of the city later on.
But Ford's cars, built in concert with Argo AI, will hardly be the first computer-driven vehicles in Austin. Google debuted its self-driving Lexus vehicle in Austin in 2015. Its vehicles soon became a common sight in North and Central Austin. And the city was also home to the first truly autonomous car ride for a resident, which demonstrated how powerful the tech could be for people with disabilities.
Austin has also hosted several other self-driving shuttle demonstrations during South By Southwest, at the University of Texas and at the airport. Earlier this year, Ford foreshadowed its inroads to Austin when it began hiring for self-driving technology jobs.
In addition to friendly regulations, Texas and the City of Austin have generally welcomed self-driving technologies with open arms -- and the state's size and huge population also make it an attractive place to start self-driving services.
"If you want to successfully launch this type of service, you can’t just drop into a city and start rolling cars out onto the streets," Marakby wrote. "You need to develop a comprehensive understanding of what people and local businesses would find useful – and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing over the next few years."
