Why brands must help customers embrace change through innovation
To drive adoption of electric cars, autonomous vehicles and other innovations, automakers must understand how they fit into Americans’ lives, says Jen Brace, the Ford Motor Company’s chief futurist.


Ford has invested in revitalizing a decrepit train station in Detroit, transforming it into a research and development space for the automaker and the community. It’s a futuristic space, rooted in the past, which is an apt metaphor for Detroit and for Ford. Ford futurist Jen Brace is monitoring signals from transportation, but also from everything from climate change to alternative proteins. But it’s challenging for her to think about the future and focus on how to power it.
Matt Carmichael: How can companies balance the need to transition to sustainable transportation with consumers who want familiar technologies?
Jen Brace: It’s one thing for companies to understand the capabilities of technology and where it can go and what it can do. But that only moves the needle if consumers are accepting of that technology. How we can ease concerns, if they're having concerns, or how we can support them along their journey is just as critical as making sure that technology is where it needs to be. It's not enough to just have tech; it's recognizing where consumers are willing to integrate it into their lives.
Carmichael: What hurdles are you seeing?
Brace: Being able to help consumers get chargers installed in their homes, being able to help them understand where and how long they need to stop, if they're going to charge when they're on the road, things like that.
Carmichael: Ford just announced a program to install EV chargers in people’s homes, right?
Brace: Yes. Recognizing some hurdles exist, we make it easier for them. The Ford Power Promise is a huge benefit. As an EV driver myself who can charge at home, it’s amazing to start my day with a full charge.
Carmichael: People also have concerns about AI.
Brace: If people are saying they’re afraid of this technology or they're worried about it ruling their lives, that puts a lot of the responsibility on us to be very up-front and open about how we're using it or if we’re using it and be smart about the way we are talking to consumers about it.
When we’ve looked at AI, in particular, we’ve seen that half of people say they’re afraid of it or they don’t understand it, which is telling. I see companies leading with that, saying, “Look at our AI-powered, fill-in-the-blank.” That might end up scaring off a customer.
Carmichael: EV sales are up, but not as far as the industry had hoped for, leading automakers to revise goals and projections. Where’s that headed?
Brace: We are in a transition period. Some recent news stories felt a little abrupt and suggestive of a huge downturn. The truth is those numbers continue to rise. While there are challenges to EV acceptance, I still see the industry wanting to move in that direction. Ensuring that we are giving consumers the power of choice between internal combustion engine, hybrid or EV helps to support consumers during this transition period.
Carmichael: How are we coming on the infrastructure to support EVs?
Brace: I was at a mobility conference, and a lot of companies are being spun up that are trying to make it easier for consumers to charge in a way that is seamless and fits into their life where they're not worried about it. Ninety percent of shoppers say they're more likely to buy an EV if they can charge at their house. It’s a multi-pronged approach. The ideal situation is charging at home while you're asleep. But we're also continuing to see improvements in infrastructure. There is a stretch of road in Detroit with inductive charging built into the road.
It’s not enough to just have tech; it’s recognizing where consumers are willing to integrate it into their lives.”
Carmichael: To what degree do you see electrification becoming politically charged as well?
Brace: It's hard to have any topic that doesn't have some level of political charge to it right now. We see the comments. We see the policies that are being brought up and enacted. And we’re seeing a shifting landscape where different states have different expectations of how their future will play out from an electrification perspective. But our plans go out much further than the next election. We have to figure out what we want our plan to be and understand which customers we want to serve, how we want to serve them and how we can continue to meet their needs regardless of how any particular election plays out.
Carmichael: What's the role of partnerships between businesses, city planners and governments to create urban environments that support all the choices consumers are looking for?
Brace: It's an easy answer to say, “Everyone needs to collaborate together.” It's not always that simple, but that's the only way we're going to make real change. We want to understand what big problems cities are trying to solve, where we might have some solutions that they haven't considered yet and how can we be part of that ongoing solution. At the heart of that, there's always the consumer. If their needs aren't taken into consideration, and it's not a solution that fits into their lives, the uptake is unlikely to be what we want it to be.
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