Ford’s self-parking system, Active Park Assist, will no longer be available. Bloomberg says that the plan to cut costs will save the company $2 billion by getting rid of several tasks that are linked. Kumar Galhotra, the COO of Ford, says that Active Park Assist has not been very popular even though it has been out for more than ten years. The function that lets some Ford cars park themselves is being turned off. Active Park Assist has been around for more than ten years, but it hasn’t become as famous as its ads would have you believe. Bloomberg says that Early this week, Ford COO Kumar Galhotra told analysts on a conference call that data from connected cars showed that “very, very few people are using it…” Obviously, the main reason for getting rid of the choice is to save money. Galhotra says that Ford will save about $60 per car and $10 million a year by making this change. The bigger number is $2 billion. The company thinks that getting rid of features like automatic self-parking will save them a lot of money because there are many hidden costs related to materials, freight, and production. Getting rid of this technology will make cars less reliant on semiconductor chips. During the recent shortage, many pieces of equipment, including Active Park Assist, had to be taken off the market or put on hold. Several Ford models, like the Escape small SUV, the electric Mustang Mach-E, and the full-size F-150 pickup, already have automated parking. The company that made Active Park Assist says it wasn’t very popular, but we wonder if the people who did use it will have trouble parallel parking any future Ford. There will soon be more empty parking spots on the street.
