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Ford will Connect Cars with Bikes and Everything Else

CEO Jim Hackett announced the development of a new “vehicle to everything” system during the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Jan. 9.

(TNS) — LAS VEGAS — Ford CEO Jim Hackett is to announce new details of the automaker's autonomous vehicles business strategy Tuesday morning during his keynote address at the CES tech conference in Las Vegas.

Ford is working with a Silicon Valley startup, Autonomic, to develop an information-sharing platform that will enable vehicles, bicycles and mass transit to communicate in the "City of Tomorrow."

The vehicles and bikes – even city stoplights and signs – will all communicate with each other in a system that Ford is calling "Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything." Ford is working with chipmaker Qualcomm to produce the system.

Additionally, Ford has inked a partnership with delivery service Postmates to begin pilot programs to explore how self-driving vehicles can be used for making quick and easy deliveries of groceries, food or retail goods.

Ford executives explained each planned development in a series of blog posts on the website Medium, which is popular in Silicon Valley.

Formerly called the Consumer Electronics Show, CES officially begins Tuesday and runs through Friday. An estimated 200,000 trade industry folks are expected to attend.

Car companies and suppliers often use the event to showcase their latest technology.

Mobility is a familiar topic for Hackett, who previously headed the automaker's Ford Smart Mobility subsidiary before rising to chief executive last spring.

©2018 the Detroit Free Press Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.