By the year 2050, Ford Motor Co expects nearly half the cars it sells will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Fifty years after that, some Ford officials muse, the company might be making high-speed trains for commuters tired of traffic.
They expect one thing won't change: Ford's commitment, ever since founder Henry Ford started the business, to an inexpensive, reliable vehicle for the common person.
"It can't be `gee whiz, high-tech' for technology's sake," says Scott Staley, Ford's fuel cell manager. "It's still going to be the working man's car."
David Healy, an analyst with Burnham Securities Inc, says Ford lost sight of that vision in the 1990s, when it ballooned into non-vehicle areas like recycling. But Healy says the company is on its way to recovery.
"Ford is back down to its core auto business," Healy says.
The most radical change Ford anticipates in its next century is the conversion from gasoline to hydrogen fuel. Staley expects hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road by 2020 and believes they'll make up 40 percent of Ford's sales by 2050.
In the meantime, Ford says it's the only US auto company aggressively developing an internal combustion engine that runs on clean-burning hydrogen, a technology Ford believes is a bridge to fuel cells. BMW AG also is developing hydrogen combustion engines.
Ford also expects major advances in safety. At Livernois Vehicle Development in Dearborn Heights, which makes prototype vehicles for Ford, a Lincoln Town Car is equipped with a red strip of light on the door that warns drivers if anything is in their blind spot. As the driver backs up, a camera flashes the scene behind the car onto the dashboard.
Eventually, Ford engineer Ron Miller says, radars will make sure drivers are staying in their lanes while cameras watch the road in front of them, classifying every object on the road by its size and speed.
If anything goes wrong, seat belts will tighten and air bags will determine the position and weight of every passenger in order to best protect them. If a driver swerves, the vehicle will shift back and right itself electronically.
Prototypes are fitted with navigation systems that will eventually be able to reroute drivers around bad traffic. Wireless technology will let drivers dial their phone or pick a song from their MP3 player just by speaking.
"Surprise and delight is critical if we're going to sell vehicles in the future," Miller says. "We have a good idea of where we're going. We just have to race to get there."
Engineers now spend a great deal of time masking new technology. The same is true for design, says Ford vice president J Mays. Unlike the 1950s, when people had an optimistic,
Jetsons-fueled vision of the future, buyers now are looking for familiarity.
"There's no appetite for the future right now, because the future is a pretty damn scary place," says Mays.
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