Google joins Ford’s research hub project

Ford Motor Co. announced Friday that Google is joining the automaker’s effort to transform a once-dilapidated Detroit train station into a research hub focused on electric and selfdriving vehicles. Also, Detroit and the state of Michigan have agreed to provide infrastructure and other support for the Michigan Central Innovation District that will include the defunct train depot and other nearby buildings in the historic Corktown neighbourhood just outside downtown, Ford said.

“The arrival of Google as a founding partner is exactly the kind of investment and progress I knew was possible to revitalize our hometown,” Ford Motor Co. Executive Chair Bill Ford said in a release. Ford announced plans for the Michigan Central Innovation District in 2018, shortly after it bought the 500,000-square-foot (46,450-square-meter) train depot. Renovations at the more than century-old Michigan Central Station could be completed by next year, Ford Motor Co. Fund President Mary Culler told The Associated Press.

Ford plans to research, test and launch new mobility solutions there. The station, which looms over Corktown, has stood empty since the last train left in 1988 and came to symbolise Detroit’s long decline from America’s manufacturing powerhouse to its biggest municipal bankruptcy. Google, which has more than 600 employees in Michigan, will open a lab on the 30-acre (12-hectare) site to teach computer science to high school students. Google’s role includes a certification program.

“That’s a partnership where Google would train people and Ford would, obviously, accept those people that have that kind of certification in our future state,” Culler said, noting that people would not need a college degree. Google’s work entails ensuring people have the digital skills and coaching they need to succeed, said Ruth Porat, its chief financial officer. The auto industry as a whole is moving toward more fully electric and hybrid propulsion systems, more autonomous driving features and increased connectivity in vehicles. Michigan Central Station opened in 1913 and for decades was a jewel of Detroit and hub of rail transportation into and out of the city. Detroit-made vehicles — along with air travel — proved part of its undoing. (AP)