Bill Ford Call Gridlock a “Severe Threat” to Auto Industry

A shift in the world's population to cities, coupled with increasing car ownership, would create global traffic deadlock and pose a "severe threat" to the classic model of personal car ownership, warns Ford Motor Co. Chairman Bill Ford Jr.

Ford tells attendees at the ITS World Congress in Detroit that such trends eventually will overwhelm the infrastructure with too many vehicles. "Where are we going to put them? Where are we going to drive them?" he asks.

Ford says such inescapable trends will force the company that bears his name to become a very different kind of business in the future.

A big challenge, he notes, will be determining which technologies Ford should buy and which it should develop on its own. Ford concedes the company hasn't yet determined where that balance is. "What we have to be," he tells reporters, "is a very nimble integrator" that isn't afraid to face changes in the business landscape.