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  3. (1) Not every self-driving car company is a hi-tech unicorn eager to disrupt

(1) Not every self-driving car company is a hi-tech unicorn eager to disrupt

游客2024-09-10  7
问题    (1) Not every self-driving car company is a hi-tech unicorn eager to disrupt the status quo. The latest firm to invite journalists to experience its autonomous technology is the epitome of traditional car manufacturing: Ford.
   (2) On its sprawling campus in Dearborn, Michigan, the century-old company is trying its hardest to look and act like a new startup. In March, Ford launched a subsidiary called Ford Smart Mobility (FSM) to develop in-car connectivity, ride-sharing and autonomous technologies. FSM is designed to compete like a startup, with the aim of translating Ford’s decade of work in autonomous systems into real products. At its first public autonomous vehicle demos, young engineers and entrepreneurs were enthused about reinventing our traffic-clogged cities.
   (3) "We’re rethinking our entire business model," said Mark Fields, Ford’s CEO. "It’s no longer about how many vehicles we can sell. It’s about what services we can provide. We understand that the world has changed from a mindset of owning vehicles to one of owning and sharing them. " That has led to some quirky (稀奇古怪的) investments, such as Ford’s acquisition last week of a San Francisco-based crowdsharing shuttle bus startup called Chariot, and a partnership to provide the city with thousands of human-powered bikes for a ride-sharing scheme.
   (4) But while Ford’s car sales are fairly healthy today, Fields foresees a world transformed by driverless cars, Uber and climate change. " You could argue that in major cities, vehicle density will drop because of automated vehicles and congestion charges. Some cities might even outlaw personal use of vehicles. " One of Ford’s strategies to cope with this is to accelerate its efforts towards a fully autonomous car. Fields now says Ford will have a completely self-driving car, without a steering wheel, an accelerator or pedals, in production by 2021. It will initially be used only for robotic taxi services in restricted urban areas but should be available for consumers to purchase by the middle of the decade.
   (5) Ford’s newfound confidence in self-driving cars comes just as the technology’s pioneers are struggling to mature beyond this same gee-whiz enthusiasm. Google’s self-driving project, perennially (永久地) poised to be spun out into a separate company, recently lost key members, while Apple is rumored to have laid off dozens of engineers and scaled back its ambitious plans to build its own autonomous vehicle.
   (6) But other rivals still seem years ahead of Ford. Uber is beginning a driverless taxi pilot in Pittsburgh this week (albeit with a human safety driver), and startup Nutonomy is already offering robotic taxi rides in Singapore. To judge by Monday’s demos, on the other hand, Ford’s self-driving Fusions are still spooked (惊吓) by bushes growing too close to the road and paralyzed with indecision when confronted with pedestrians who may or may not be about to step off the pavement.
   (7) Its fleet of development cars, currently just 10 strong, looks thin compared with Google’s dozens of cars operating across the U. S. , or the thousands of autopilot-enabled Teslas gathering millions of miles of real-world data monthly. Ford aims to have 30 autonomous Fusions by the end of the year, and about 100 by the end of 2017.
   (8) But although Ford may appear to be lagging behind, it has been working quietly behind the scenes. Several self-driving startups, including Uber, Faraday Future and Autonomous Stuff, are already using Ford Fusions (or its near equivalent, the Lincoln MKZ) to develop their own technologies. "It’s the absolute best vehicle right now for testing self-driving," says Bobby Hambrick, CEO of Autonomous Stuff, a company developing retro-fit automated driving kits. "There are no other carmakers that are so open to work through third parties like us. "
   (9) Fields also points to the multinational’s competencies in building and selling vehicles. "We’ve been working on autonomous vehicles for over 10 years," he said. "And for 100 years, we’ve built high-volume product with quality and affordability. "
   (10) Fields finished his keynote address by predicting that autonomous vehicles will have as big an impact on society as Henry Ford’s moving assembly line did a century ago. He will be hoping that Ford will still be around to celebrate the centenary of the autonomous car. [br] Which of the following can we infer about the status of Ford’s self-driving scheme?
选项 A、It is far behind its rivals in technology.
B、It has made a breakthrough in certain aspects.
C、It is an impulsive activity without mature design.
D、It is restricted in a small-scale trial operation.
答案 B
解析 推断题。本题需要依据全文主要信息推断。文章从第二段至倒数第二段均在说明福特无人驾驶项目的情况，其中在第八段中提到，福特的无人驾驶项目虽然看似落后于对手，但一些该领域的先驱企业却选用了它的重要部件，并对它的服务表示了肯定，可见，它在某些领域还是实现了突破，故[B]为正确答案。[A]“在技术方面远远落后于其竞争对手”是对第八段第一句的曲解，原文是一个转折句，前半句说福特看似落在后面，但却做了很多幕后工作，可见，福特并非真正落伍，故排除[A]；第五段第一句说，福特对进入无人驾驶汽车市场的信心来自于先驱们已经在狂热之后走向了成熟，可见，它的全自动项目不是一时冲动的决定，因此排除[C]；第七段开头虽然提到福特全自动项目目前规模较小，但是也提到了它在未来几年中迅速扩大的计划，故[D]也应排除。
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