How Ford's Sync Technology Will Turn It Into America's Most Surprising Consumer Electronics Company [Update]

By: Paul HochmanApril 1, 2010

Photographs by Stephen Wilkes

The next generation of Ford's Sync technology will turn its cars into rolling, talking, socially networked, cloud-connected supermachines. Introducing America's most surprising consumer-electronics company.

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"It's cool to connect. But it's past cool. It's a reason to buy. We're going to be the coolest, most useful app you've ever had." -CEO Alan Mulally | Photographs by Stephen Wilkes

A tall woman in a taut skirt enters. She takes my drink order, and then I watch her disappear down a burnished-mahogany-paneled hall. It's library quiet. Through the glass walls of the waiting area, past three Marcel Breuer chairs, I can see another woman seated at a huge desk, in an enormous mahogany office, talking on the phone. Suddenly, she stands up, reflexively straightens her flannel skirt, and smiles at somebody I can't see. Then she looks over at me. Beckons. Time speeds up. I'm ushered across the hall.

The episode of Mad Men ends and reality begins. And there he is, Alan Mulally, the chief executive of Ford Motor Co., his red hair combed in the old-timey coif of a former Boeing engineer. He leaps to his feet.

"C'mere!" he says, and puts his arm around my shoulder. "You've got to see this."

Mulally drags me into his giant inner office and points out the 20-foot-long window. "Look!"

There is a broad, sweeping view of the Rouge River; a hundred factory buildings; smokestacks.

"That's GM," he says, "right there. Bankrupt!"

He turns to his left, still with his arm around my shoulder, spinning me with him. I'm off balance.

"See that over there? Chrysler. All gone. Unbelievable, right?"

He's silent for a moment. He's not gloating, just amazed at the cataclysm right outside his window. "Unbelievable."

Mulally has steered Ford away from the brink in the four years since he arrived from Boeing. He cut labor costs by almost 22%; rallied his company around a printed four-point mantra that 200,000 Ford employees can carry around on a card in their wallet; and with his former chief financial officer, Don Leclair, even managed to raise cash the old-fashioned way -- by borrowing from a bank, securing $23.5 billion in loans without asking the government for a penny. The moves paid off. In 2009, while his competition stalled, Ford made a $2.7 billion profit; by early 2010, the company had earned "car of the year" and "truck of the year" awards from the auto press and its stock price rose 700% from its 52-week low.

Mulally also culled his brand's herd of nameplates, to fewer than 20, from 97. This achievement especially thrills the CEO, who still becomes unhinged thinking about how unfocused, how uncool, the Ford brand had become. "I mean, we had 97 of these, for God's sake!" he says, pointing at a list of old models. "How you gonna make 'em all cool? You gonna come in at 8 a.m. and say, 'From 8 until noon, I'm gonna make No. 64 cool? And then I'll make No. 17 cool after lunch?' It was ridiculous!"

Mulally has certainly benefited from his rivals' recent tendency to slash their own tires -- as when GM was repo'd by American taxpayers, or when Toyota inadvertently installed its accelerators in the "always on" position. But his most recent move is his boldest: He's getting out of the car business. Or rather, he's joining forces with a most un-automotive cabal, the consumer-electronics industry. In his quest to change Ford's culture, redefine its image, thrill young customers, and even revolutionize the car itself, Mulally wants to connect his autos to the Internet and to the souls of the people who surf it.

"Look, it's cool to connect. But it's past cool," he says, standing up in the middle of his sentence. (He's getting worked up again.) "It's a reason to buy. Tech is why people are going to buy Ford! We're going to be the coolest, most useful app you've ever had, seamlessly keeping you connected."

Ford is transforming the car into a powerful smartphone, one that lets you carry your digital world along with you and then customize it. And by the way, says Mulally, it "makes you a better driver." How? By freeing you from the tyrannies (and dangers) of messing with that little phone while you drive and letting you command your technology, through the car, using only your voice; by establishing the car itself as your connection to the cloud; and by giving mobile developers a way to create an ever-expanding portfolio of services designed for -- and around -- your vehicle.

And if the thought of a slightly stooped, graying multinational hooking up with a hot young industry leaves you a little queasy, here's the surprise: Ford is not just basking in the borrowed glow of the likes of Pandora and Twitter; the car company is generating heat as well. To the surprise of technologists and CE wonks, Ford has discovered a way to make the world's most popular high-tech device -- the phone -- stronger, just by bringing it into a car. Ford's system takes the power, features, and much of the content on your smartphone and gives it a human-scale outlet that's easy and safe to operate at 65 miles per hour.