• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, February 11, 2016

New report out: according the University of Michigan’s renowned Transportation Research Institute, there is bad news for car makers. Their research between 1983 and 2014 found that fewer people, especially particularly younger people, but not exclusively are driving now. With younger Millennials and Gen Z, the drop is striking: a 20% drop. So automakers are going to have to figure that out.

Ford was in town on Wednesday to talk about a new program that is implicit in its acknowledgment of this situation. Elena Ford and Sheryl Connolly met with a small group of us at a very appropriate location: NeueHouse, a shared work space in New York, with amenities like hipster gourmet dishes, nitrogen-infused coffee, and long shared rough-hewn wooden tables with high-end earphones, and, of course, outlets. The place was full of young start-up types.

Ford was there to talk up FordPass. I’m not saying I should be a futurist, though I think I could be one, but one aspect of the multi-prong program involves urban “stores,” FordHubs, being tested in New York, San Francisco, and Shanghai. I’d been thinking along those lines: digital/physical urban auto brand spaces as a dealership intermediary. As Elena Ford put it, “Millennials spend about 4.5 hours going to dealerships every year, but 900 hours being mobile.”

The big picture is that Ford wants to become something more expansive than an automaker: an auto and mobility company. That strategy, says Ford, has three touch points: physical, personal and digital, seamlessly integrated in a free app, free to people who don’t own a Ford, as well. She says the open API structure lets Ford add applications based on what people want. In essence, the FordPass is a simple-layout app that includes amenities like a button that lets you lock and unlock from anywhere — maybe not such a good idea, do diagnostics, or start your (Sync-equipped Ford) vehicle from anywhere, maybe also not so good, unless you can also remotely drive it to you and your groceries, something that is certainly coming.

It also has FordGuides, people whom Ford says are all FordPass members themselves. They give you advice on issues like how to get from the Holland Tunnel to Newark Liberty International, which I defy Stephen Hawking to figure out. There are loyalty amenities via partnerships: one with ParkWhiz lets you pay in advance for a parking space; one with FlightCar, a nod to the sharing economy. FlightCar lets someone exiting the airport use your car while you, presumably, have also left the airport, via runway. Ford said it also has a digital wallet function, FordPay, that right now only works for the ParkWhiz, but will roll out to other services.

There is also a partnership with McDonald’s and 7-Eleven, where FordPass members get deals on merchandise. It also has a vehicle service function, connecting you to your Ford dealer, so you can make an appointment for maintenance or service or do Ford Credit finance stuff.

The automaker developed all of this by putting together an integrated group of teams. “We knew we wanted to have a workshop environment for rapid innovation, with rooms of people where everyone had a task, but these were combined teams. A digital team, retail expert, and someone expert on the personal aspect.” She said that the FordGuides are part of, and steeped in, that space so they aren’t engaging with members in a vacuum.

Can FordPass make waves, and, ultimately, drive loyalty and bring in new customers to dealership? To my thinking, it depends on the long game, which can’t be that long. FordPass can’t be a “get and forget” app. Ford said that the key to avoiding that circumstance is building functionality through third-party additions and innovations. But those apps either have to be very compelling “why didn’t someone think of this before” features, or the entire FordPass suite has to have enough combined value that the app supersedes individual single-function products. And the window of opportunity isn’t big. They will have to work fast to add functionality after launch, or FordPass will become like a car on cinder blocks in the digital back 40.