Ford Motor Company has established Latitude AI, a wholly owned subsidiary focused on developing a hands-free, eyes-off-the-road automated driving system for millions of vehicles.

With the formation of Latitude, Ford adds a team of machine learning, robotics, software, sensors, systems engineering and operations talent as the automaker grows and expands its development efforts in automated driving technology—including advancements in Ford BlueCruise, which already has accumulated more than 50 million miles of hands-free driving.

Latitude is automating driving during times that can be tedious, stressful and unpleasant, such as bumper-to-bumper traffic or on long stretches of highway. The average driver in the US spends nearly 100 hours a year sitting in traffic according to the transportation analytics firm INRIX.

We see automated driving technology as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between people and their vehicles.

—Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer, Ford Motor Company

Establishing Latitude supports Ford’s strategic shift last year to focus on automated driving technologies for personally owned vehicles. Ford hired about 550 employees formerly of Argo AI across machine learning and robotics, cloud platforms, mapping, sensors and compute systems, test operations, systems and safety engineering. The Latitude team has applied much of their experience in automated driving, including software development tools and infrastructure, in the pivot to work on advanced driver assist systems (ADAS).

Sammy Omari, executive director, ADAS Technologies at Ford, also will serve as the CEO of Latitude. Peter Carr is appointed chief technology officer, overseeing Latitude’s product and technical development, and David Gollob is named president, with responsibility for business operations.

Latitude is headquartered in Pittsburgh with additional engineering hubs in Dearborn, Michigan, and Palo Alto, California. The company also will operate a highway-speed test track facility in Greenville, SC.