Breaking a relative silence about its intentions for self-driving vehicles, Ford Motor Co. today said it plans to produce a fully autonomous car, with no steering wheel or gas or brake pedals, in commercial volumes by 2021.

Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields made the announcement at Ford’s Silicon Valley outpost in Palo Alto, where he also said the automaker will be doubling the number people working on advanced car technologies in the Valley to 260 by the end of next year.

Fields declined to say how many vehicles Ford would be producing in five years, though he said the company would initially sell to ride-hailing or ride-sharing companies, not consumers — partly because he expects the cost of the cars to be relatively high. Ford makes some 18 million vehicles for the U.S. market, and Fields provided a wide range of possible production levels for driverless car: less than 2 million to 4 million but more than 200 to 300. He also declined to say whether Ford itself would run its own fleet of the cars.

Revolutionary

Field said that he believes the cars could be as revolutionary as the invention of the Ford assembly line over 100 years ago. “The world is changing, and it’s changing very quickly,” he told the gathering today. “Some of the best parts will be driven by Ford.”

In comments after the event to John Furrier, SiliconANGLE Media co-CEO and host of its video unit theCUBE, Fields said he thinks Middle America is ready for self-driving cars. “What they’re ready for in larger cities is, how do I get around easier?”

Fields noted that 90 percent of the fatalities caused by accidents in the U.S. are due to human error. “If you can take even a small piece of that away, you’re going to save lives,” he said. “You’re going to save families. You’re going to save memories for fathers, daughters, sons.”

The CEO acknowledged that Ford has not moved as forcefully into self-driving cars as some other companies. General Motors bought a $500 million stake in ride-hailing firm Lyft and acquired autonomous car startup Cruise Automation Inc. earlier this year. And BMW recently teamed with Intel Corp. and Mobileye NV on technology to enable an autonomous car by 2021 as well.

But Ford’s CEO defended the company’s restraint. “We’re not in a race to make announcements,” Fields said. “We’re not in a race to be first. We’re in a race to do what’s right for our customers and our business.”

Fields said Ford’s facility in Silicon Valley, opened a year and a half ago, will be key to developing many of the technologies needed. “The ecosystem here is unbelievable,” said Fields, who noted that Ford has more than 40 startup and incubator partners here. “It’s the right place to be.”

$150 million investment

Ford also announced a $150 million investment, along with Chinese Web giant Baidu Inc., in Velodyne LiDAR Inc., a California-based company that builds Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) sensors for autonomous cars. According to Velodyne, the investment will allow it to scale up production of its sensors and make them cheaper for vehicle makers, which in turn will facilitate the mass production of safer, self-driving vehicles.

One of the biggest challenges facing the autonomous car revolution is the ability for the vehicles to detect and avoid obstacles in the road, whether they are pedestrians, debris, or other cars. LiDAR is one way in which autonomous cars are able to “see” the world around them. LiDAR works similarly to radar, which is also used with autonomous cars, but instead of radio waves, LiDAR sensors use lasers to scan their surroundings.

Velodyne has been specializing in autonomous vehicle LiDAR for several years, and its technology has been used by a number of key players in the industry, including Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google Inc. Velodyne’s sensors not only make autonomous cars smarter, allowing them to navigate roads more accurately than relying on GPS data alone, but they also make the vehicles safer.

While an external system can tell the car how fast to drive or what routes to take, LiDAR sensors can detect unexpected obstacles, such as a car suddenly stopping ahead or a child running into the road. “We are determined to help improve the goal of safety for automotive vehicles as soon as possible, as well as empower the efficiency autonomous systems offer,” David Hall, Velodyne’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Safety concerns

Safety is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to self-driving vehicles, especially in the wake of two recent accidents involving autonomous Tesla vehicles. As it turned out, one of those accidents was caused by driver error rather than the car’s autopilot, but worries remain.

LiDAR is only one type of sensor used to make self-driving vehicles safer, and most actually use a combination of multiple types of sensors to build a more complete picture of the road. For example, other technologies used include radar, audio sensors and traditional cameras.

Making the cars themselves safer is only half of the equation. As autonomous cars become more and more viable, there is a wide range of ethical and legal questions that will become increasingly vital to the future of the industry.

A commonly cited example is whether or not a self-driving car should prioritize the safety of passengers or pedestrians. For example, if a pedestrian suddenly runs into the road and the car’s only options are to hit the pedestrian or to collide with a brick wall, which should it do? Who should be held legally responsible for deaths caused by the decisions of an AI, if anyone? These questions are important not only to the car makers themselves but to regulators as well.

You can watch Ford’s autonomous vehicle announcement below:

Image courtesy of Ford