Ford Motor may be taking a cautious approach to its autonomous driving programme, but its chair rejected claims that the US carmaker was falling behind its peers.
"I don't agree," Bill Ford said at an auto tech conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday when asked about losing market share.
"Our self-driving system, Argo, is incredibly competitive. On the technology side, we are right up there with the very best in terms of time of development but we want to take great care before we let people in these vehicles."
In Israel for the first time to launch an innovation centre, Ford said the timing for marketing self-driving cars was unclear given that safety issues need to be resolved.
"We are dealing with people's lives. We have to be absolutely sure these are ready for prime time in all conditions," he told the EcoMotion conference.