Ford acquires Chariot
In an attempt to boost its progress, Ford’s Smart Mobility, whose mission is to provide alternative ways to commute just bought Chariot, a San Francisco-based vehicle sharing company.
Founded in 2014, Chariot has been using Ford vehicles since the beginning and now being part of Ford Smart Mobility, the company will be able to leverage on Ford’s expertise in logistics to progress much faster and expand.
Chariot currently operates about 100 shuttles along 28 routes in the San Francisco Bay Area and it plans to expand to five additional cities in the next 18 months.
Following the acquisition, Ford stated that instead of using crowdsourced routes, with the Ford algorithms, they will allow trips to be scheduled in real-time. Last year, General Motors also made a similar purchase of $500 million for Lyft.
Ford’s vision is to address the transportation crisis of San Francisco Bay Area. The FordGoBikes have also made a good impact in SF and the company plans to build on this success with Chariot. Ford stated that they want Chariot to compete with existing public transport by offering more convenient routes.
However, no financial details of this deal have been disclosed.
So what do you guys think about the acquisition and the transport system of San Francisco? Let us know in the comment section down below and follow us on social media.
Via: | TechCrunch |
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Source: | Chariot Press |
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Image Credits: | Ford |
