Ford to equip all new US vehicles with 5G technology from 2022

CHICAGO - US automaker Ford said on Monday it would equip all its new US vehicles from 2022 with 5G-enabled wireless communication technology, in a bid to make roads safer and cities better.

Some 150 years after an English engineer invented the world's first traffic light in London, Ford pledged "to continue advancing this type of thinking by committing to deploy cellular vehicle-to-everything technology -- or C-V2X -- in all of our new vehicle models in the United States beginning in 2022," said Don Butler, executive director of Ford Connected Vehicle Platform and Product.

C-V2X is a wireless communication technology that can "talk" to and "listen" for similarly equipped vehicles, people and traffic management infrastructure such as traffic lights to relay important information and help make city mobility safer and less congested, Butler explained in a post on Ford's website.

Planned alongside the rapidly building 5G cellular network, C-V2X enables direct communication between the connected devices, meaning a signal doesn't need to first travel to a cellular tower. It lets vehicles, human-driven or driverless, know in real time what's ahead of them even before they have to encounter it.

According to Ford, C-V2X will work with Ford's Co-Pilot360 system, an advanced suite with driver-assist and other safety features.

In September 2018, Ford tested its C-V2X technology in Wuxi city, eastern China, where there is the world's first city-level C-V2X pilot area, reportedly covering 211 intersections.

Ford officials said they were excited to be part of successful demonstrations in Wuxi and elsewhere, in an effort to promote the development of C-V2X worldwide.