Ford executive says connected cars crucial to solving gridlock

With the number of motorized vehicles in the world forecast to increase from 1 billion now to 2 billion to 4 billion by 2050, there is increased impetus to make vehicles more connected, according to Stephen Odell of Ford Motor. "If we do nothing we could end up with global gridlock," he said this week at a conference in Spain. "Cars are the smartphones of the future," Odell added. "There are many untapped opportunities for mobile to play a role in advanced automated driving." Ford was in the news recently for dropping Microsoft as the technology running its navigation and entertainment systems and choosing QNX which is owned by BlackBerry.

Source: CEA SmartBrief