If Ford is going to successfully get the public to buy into it expanding from an automaker to a mobility company, it's going to need FordPass to be a hit.
After going hands-on with the digital platform Tuesday at the Current banquet hall in New York City's Chelsea Piers, we think Ford has an excellent chance of doing just that.
The all-encompassing app — although the company prefers the term mobility delivery platform — aims to equip drivers with a smarter way to move, making their lives on the go easier after Ford's research found that Americans spend upward of 900 hours moving annually.
"The easiest way to understand [FordPass] is it's our delivery platform for mobility services and solutions. It's the way that we're going to enable you to have access to new ways to move and have good experiences as you move," Ken Washington, Ford's vice president of research and advanced engineering, told us about FordPass, which will be available in late April. "We all live highly digital-connected lives and when we go somewhere, we interact with other companies and other services and other solutions. We might be driving our own car, we might be riding in a friend's car, we might be riding in a back seat of a taxi or Uber vehicle."
"All of those experiences are mobility experiences," he continued. "FordPass is our way of enabling you to bring with you your relationship with Ford, so you can have a great experience and be rewarded for being a member of our mobility delivery platform."
Upon a hands-on walk-through of FordPass, we saw firsthand how the digital platform is split into four main areas: the Marketplace of mobility solutions and experiences, Guides for real people that you can speak with for real-time mobility solutions — think Amazon's Mayday, Perks for rewards that you can earn along the way and FordHubs, physical locations showing off tech and mobility innovations and experiences from the company.
Upon opening the FordPass dashboard, which is pretty seamless in the way you can drag and move tabs to your liking, you're hit with several mobility solutions, ranging from vehicle controls to smart parking.
The vehicle controls allow you to do everything from remote start and stop your vehicle to unlock and lock its doors. We especially liked the ability to set a timer on how long you warm up your car, as owners may want to have the engine bake a little longer during harsh winters.
Through partnerships with Parkopedia and ParkWhiz, FordPass is not only able to locate parking lots and garages, but also offers its users the ability to book a spot in advance. So, say you're heading to a sporting event and want to reserve a parking spot ahead of time. Well, often, there are several lots around a stadium, with each one touting its own price.
FordPass would let you sit back and choose the lot's location and price that best suits you and go ahead and book the spot with a stored credit card, which is conveniently kept on the app. Once it's paid for, you'll get a barcode scan, which the parking lot attendant can scan to locate your parking spot. Typically, Parkopedia specializes in locating lots and parking garages while ParkWhiz keys in on advance booking of spots, and smartphone users would have to download and use each app's function separately. FordPass' technology, though, rolls both apps up into one use. Pretty cool.
Washington told us that Ford currently has a pilot program for pinpointing street parking — a feature that the company looks forward to bringing to FordPass in the United States in the near future. Along those same lines, while the live Guides will begin with live chat or phone assistance, the company plans to beef up the support to 24 hours, seven days a week as the technology and demand becomes more robust. Until then, it has preset mobility buttons loaded for users to ring up at their disposal, getting the live help they need quickly.
The company also announced a partnership with Spotify on Tuesday, with the mobility delivery platform touting the ability to curate playlists according to your current driving situation. So, if you're stuck in traffic, it may suggest something to the effect of "We're Not Gonna Take It."
As excited as Ford is about expanding from being an automaker to a mobility company as well, the brand will never forget its roots. If anything, it envisions its cars and SUVs and mobility working hand-in-hand with full connectivity in the near future.
"Our efforts to bring these exciting new mobility services and FordPass to the consumers, to our customers and to bring new customers to Ford ... as exciting as that is, I want people to never forget that that's riding on the shoulders of a great automaker and that's bringing a lot of value into that mobility ecosystem," Washington said. "And we expect the mobility ecosystem to bring value back to our core as well. So, we're being an automaker and a mobility company."
