{"id":50350,"date":"2012-05-31T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=50350"},"modified":"2012-05-31T08:27:27","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T12:27:27","slug":"bill-ford-wants-to-turn-michigan-into-the-silicon-valley-of-mobility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2012\/05\/bill-ford-wants-to-turn-michigan-into-the-silicon-valley-of-mobility\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Ford Wants to Turn Michigan into the \u201cSilicon Valley of Mobility\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ford Chairman Bill Ford Jr. believes Detroit and Michigan can shed their rust belt personna.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Can the Motor City shed its rust belt image and take on a persona more in line with high-tech communities like San Francisco, Palo Alto, California or Seattle? Yes, says Ford Motor Co. Chairman Bill Ford, who contends Michigan, as a whole, can be repositioned as the \u201cSilicon Valley of Mobility.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a sense, it\u2019s a matter of been-there-done-that.\u00a0 In its heyday, in the early years of the 20th Century, Detroit was the quintessential American boom town, much like Silicon Valley is today.\u00a0 It was dubbed by many the \u201cParis of the Midwest\u201d because of its art, architecture and sophisticated lifestyle.\u00a0 But things began to rapidly decline in the post-War years and today some old industrial sites are being converted back to farmland.<\/p>\n

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News You Can Use!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But in a speech during the annual Mackinac Policy Conference, Chairman Ford insisted continuing decline is not inevitable \u2013 especially if Detroit and Michigan embrace new \u201cgreen, smart technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo address this issue, we will once again need new technologies, as well as new ways of looking at the world.\u00a0 We will need to view the automobile as one element of a transportation ecosystem,\u201d the great-grandson of Ford founder Henry Ford declared.<\/p>\n

The automobile, Bill Ford has noted on several occasions, can no longer be viewed as a standalone machine.\u00a0 Industry leaders need to accept and respond to such challenges as fuel economy, emissions, safety and highway gridlock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis technology is in varying stages of development and deployment, but it promises to radically transform the experience of driving,\u201d said Ford during today\u2019s speech. \u201cAs it develops, I believe Michigan must become the Silicon Valley of the mobility revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of his own company, the Ford Chairman noted the maker has so far invested nearly a billion dollars in battery technology in Michigan.\u00a0 That includes upgrades to the Michigan Assembly Plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne that recently began producing the new Ford Focus Electric.\u00a0 The factory will also add a plug-in hybrid version of Ford\u2019s new C-Max \u201cpeople-mover\u201d later this year.<\/p>\n

As TheDetroitBureau.com recently reported, there has been a significant turnaround in terms of high-tech job opportunities in Michigan.\u00a0 According to the Society of Automotive Engineers and other groups, there is now a shortage of trained specialists, especially with more advanced skills in areas such as fuel economy and emissions controls. And Detroit’s Big Three aren’t the only ones hiring. Virtually every major automaker and supplier now has a significant tech presence in Metro Detroit, including Toyota which has set up a major test track and engineering center near Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Chairman Ford noted a recent study by the TechAmerica Foundation that found that despite the deep recession Michigan had added more high-tech jobs in 2009 and 2010 than any other state.<\/p>\n

The turnaround of the so-called Great Lakes State will require a significant effort, the executive acknowledged, and will take steps that ensure its competitiveness.\u00a0 He concluded his speech by calling on lawmakers to take several steps, including the elimination of personal property taxes and an investment in upgrading the electrical grid \u2013 which many currently see as a significant impediment to both expanded industrialization and the growth of the electric vehicle market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can keep this momentum going if we are frank about the areas in which we can improve and we build upon our advantages,\u201d Ford added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan and Detroit can shed their Rust Belt image and transform themselves into the “Silicon Valley of Mobility,” proclaimed Ford Motor Co. Chairman Bill Ford. The great-grandson of Henry Ford said the challenge is to embrace new “green, smart technologies.” TheDetroitBureau.com explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50350"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=50350"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=50350"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=50350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}