Ford has been making cars for 118 years — nearly all of them with internal combustion engines. It now faces the biggest challenge in its history. As the electric vehicle (EV) revolution accelerates and people rethink their relationships with cars, both automotive incumbents and upstarts are planning for a radically different world.

Ford’s chief product platform and operations officer Hau Thai-Tang is ideally placed to discuss what that shift looks like. He and Azeem Azhar explore how EV uptake will transform what a car is and what it means to own and drive one, as well as what it will take to retool Ford to thrive in the technology age.

They also discuss:

• How doing away with combustion engines will revolutionize car design.
• Why exponential uptake of EVs could happen within the next five years.
• Why carmakers will start to look more like Netflix and Apple.

@azeem
@exponentialview

Further resources:

• ‘Ford, SK to invest $11.4 bln to add electric F-150 plant, three battery factories’ (Reuters)
• ‘Trends and developments in electric vehicle markets’ (IEA)
• ‘Levels of Autonomous Driving, Explained’ (J.D. Power)