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Customers use the Active Park Assist feature less frequently. Photo: Ford. |
Ford is considering removing a feature from the Active Park Assist package that has been introduced by the company over a decade ago to save costs for both the automaker and customers amid increasing inflation, according to CarBuzz.
In a meeting this week, Ford COO Kumar Galhotra said that very few customers are using the parallel parking assist feature, and therefore, Ford could eliminate the feature.
“The park assist feature allows cars to automatically complete the parallel parking process. However, very few people are using this feature and we can remove it to save $60 per vehicle,” said Kumar Galhotra.
Moreover, Ford’s COO believes that removing this feature could save the U.S. automaker about $10 million in annual expenses.
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The Active Park Assist package from Ford helps cars park automatically. Photo: Ford. |
The parallel parking assist feature is part of Ford’s Active Park Assist driver assistance technology package. Introduced by the American automaker in 2009, Active Park Assist is one of the first commercial systems to offer this capability, aimed at reducing stress for drivers during the often challenging parallel parking process.
Since then, many Ford models have been equipped with this feature, including low-end vehicles. According to CarBuzz, most of the new car models currently on the market have parallel parking assist features.
However, as noted by Kumar Galhotra, this feature seems to not be the preferred choice of many vehicle owners. Ford realized this trend through analyzing data collected from customer vehicles.
Active Park Assist, currently in version 2.0, is still being offered by Ford on many of their vehicles today as part of the Co-Pilot360 Level 2 autonomous driving technology. In the U.S. market, the electric F-150 Lightning pickup and the Explorer are among the models that currently have this feature. However, according to CarBuzz‘s assessment, this is likely to change soon.
According to CarBuzz, in today’s age, most vehicle owners prefer self-parking due to its speed and simplicity, rather than relying on the assistance technology provided by automakers.
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