Ford unveiled the company's brand new 25,000-square-foot research center in Silicon Valley in a move that will see the automobile manufacturer become closer with the tech industry.
At the launch event of the research center, which is in the Stanford Research Park, Ford CEO Mark Fields revealed that the company was searching for the best technology available for the industry.
"As we think about coming to Silicon Valley, we want to be viewed as part of the ecosystem here," said Fields. "Silicon Valley is a marketplace of ideas and it's important to be here and be a part of that. The research center is another proof point of that."
The company already had a research center in Silicon Valley since 2012. However, the new facility represents a major increase in the presence of Ford in the area. While the old research center only housed eight employees, the new research center will launch with 20 engineers, most of which are in software.
Ford is also planning to increase the number of engineers at the site to 125 within the year, which will make the facility one of the biggest research centers for automobile manufacturers.
Car makers are increasingly looking to become more affiliated with the tech industry, with many of the big names having a research and development laboratory in Silicon Valley to work on technology for car connectivity and driverless cars, along with forming partnerships with the universities and tech companies in the area.
The newly-hired Dragos Maciuca, a former Apple senior engineer, will be running the facility. Maciuca's last project with Apple before transferring to Ford was the camera of the iPhone 6.
Maciuca earned his doctorate degree at University of California, Berkeley in 1997, and his thesis at the time focused on autonomous driving.
The event held on the research center demonstrated some pieces of technology for Ford's assisted driving systems in the company's latest vehicles. One of the demonstrations was the 2015 Edge, which assists drivers with parallel parking through 12 ultra-sonar sensors. A prototype of Ford's driverless car, which is equipped with four laser scanners at the vehicle's top, was also shown.
Ford's new research facility is not all about driverless cars though, as the company is also looking to develop technologies for mobility, connectivity, big data and customer experience.
One of the collaborations highlighted by Ford was the one with smart home company Nest, which developed the smart thermostat. Ford vehicles can be set up with the thermostat so that the driver's home can adjust its temperature when the car is leaving the house or is close to getting back home.
