Ford Chooses a Detroit Base to Take On Silicon Valley
DETROIT — In a bid to link its historic past with its future products, Ford Motor said on Thursday
that it had chosen a site near downtown Detroit as the base for a high-level team working on self-driving and electric cars.
Ford has long been a major presence in southeastern Michigan with its headquarters and factories,
but the company has had minimal operations in Detroit — where its founder, Henry Ford, built a Model T assembly plant more than a century ago.
Fiat Chrysler operates a major assembly plant in the city limits,
and a few years ago moved its Midwestern marketing staff into a downtown office building.
“Returning to Detroit is particularly meaningful because it is where my great-grandfather originally set out to pursue his passion
and where we always have called our home,” William C. Ford Jr., the company’s chairman, said at a media event announcing the plans.
G. M.’s headquarters is on the Detroit River, and the company operates an assembly plant that is partly within the city.
The company said it would move more than 200 employees next year into a renovated garment
factory near the former site of Tiger Stadium in the Corktown neighborhood.
Now, Ford wants to be part of the surprising comeback of Detroit, which has experienced a rush of rehabilitation of vacant buildings
and an overall business expansion since emerging from municipal bankruptcy in 2014.
