Don Butler Photo: Paul Kaminski
Radio plays an important role in today’s third generation of Ford Motor Co.’s Sync infotainment system, just like the first, which was introduced in 2007 at the CES. Ford Motor Co. Executive Director of Connected Vehicles and Services Don Butler said that will continue into the future.
At the 2017 North American International Auto Show, Butler described Ford’s Sync system as a means of empowering the automotive consumer’s digital lifestyle and how they consume content. The consumption of radio remains a constant, even with changes in “hard media” such as SD cards, CDs, or other media inside the vehicle over the three generations of Sync systems. “When we look at surveys, more than half our users and owners continue to listen to radio inside the vehicle, and we don’t see that changing. We still want to make sure we provide broadly accessible means of entertainment and information to people and radio plays a huge part in that as well.”
Butler said a Wi-Fi hotspot capability would be introduced in the 2017 Ford F-150 pickup with a free trial and a subsequent subscription for the data plan once the trial period ends. “We’re making sure again, that we’re accommodating customers and how they’d like to consume content in the simplest, easiest way to understand.”
