Mike Tinskey, Global Director of Electrification and Vehicle Infrastructure at Ford Motor Company, provides insight into how solar powered vehicles are key to the future of connectivity:

What is the most important next step to engage consumers in smart home solutions, connected entertainment services, and/or value-added services like tech support and connected health?

The most important step in any marked change in consumer behavior is demonstrating value.  It is up to those of us pushing for change (automakers, utilities, energy providers, state and local government groups) to demonstrate this value to the customer – and it has to be significant – but it also should be seamless.

As the Director of Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure at Ford, my job is to drive sustainability related to the electric vehicle ecosystem, but I also am responsible for developing partnerships that drive our electrification strategy forward.

Partnerships are paramount to showing the full utility that available smart home solutions provide. Ford collaborates with various companies in this space in order to make life easier for our consumers, and we are continually looking for new innovative ways to make homes even more connected.

For instance, we led a program with Nest, Eaton, SunPower, Whirlpool, and Infineon to increase energy and CO2 savings called MyEnergi Lifestyle. Through this initiative, Ford aimed to bring together leaders in home appliances, renewable energy, and power management industries, with the ultimate goal of helping consumers easily switch a bulk of their energy use to off-peak hours through cloud-based automation, vastly decreasing energy costs and the stress on the grid in the process.

What is the biggest challenge your company faces in 2015?

As city populations skyrocket, increased congestion threatens to bring mobility to a grinding halt. According to a recent Department of Transportation report, Americans spend more than 40 hours stuck in traffic each year, contributing to an annual fiscal cost of congestion of $121 billion. As frustrated drivers spend more and more time circling around cities searching for parking, our carbon footprint has grown unnecessarily.

While infrastructure investment will be part of the solution, innovation on the part of automakers is also a key piece of the puzzle. To address this problem, automotive manufacturers need to think beyond putting more cars on the road. We recognize that we need to become software innovators, consumer behavior experts and sharing economy participants.

Today, my team and I are focused on solving some of the major infrastructure and mobility issues in the world with connectivity, including parking, home energy use, solar adoption, and EV charging infrastructure. We are even working with Georgia Tech on an experiment that allows us to remotely reposition a golf cart using only a 4G LTE connection.

What is the biggest driver for the connected consumer market?

The biggest driver for the connected market is the real benefits and savings derived by consumers. As smart appliances become more efficient and affordable, greater proportions of the population will be able and willing to upgrade their devices. Today, the typical smart appliance uses 70 percent less energy than one built in 1980. The ability to significantly reduce a consumer’s energy bill can serve as a powerful incentive to make this initial upfront investment in a new smart appliance.

At Ford, we realize that continued innovation is key to making connected home components more efficient and affordable, which is the primary driver of their adoption. That is why we emphasize on-going research and innovation, evidenced through the opening of our new Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto earlier this year.

What are the most important initiatives your company is taking in 2015?

Ford’s Smart Mobility plan is our global initiative that aims to address sustainability challenges as they relate to transportation. We have introduced nearly 30 experiments aimed at better understanding the transportation ecosystem.

My team was involved in four of the experiments, including a project that aims to help drivers find parking spots using sensors already installed on vehicles. By using these ultrasonic sensors to create a real-time parking database that is stored in the cloud, we can potentially eliminate traffic congestion caused by distracted driving while helping cities avoid investing billions of dollars in new infrastructure. We recently opened our Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto, where we worked with Nest’s API to help thermostats and vehicles communicate.

Describe your vision for the smart home and entertainment markets in 2020.

By 2020, I hope that the idea of a home without solar panels and an EV in the garage is seen as antiquated. We already know through our work with KB Home that model houses are being built with an eye toward net zero energy use, and many customers are responding.

For our part, along with the aforementioned MyEnergi Lifestyle, we’ve also partnered with SunPower and Sierra Club to launch the Drive Green for Life program in an effort to increase the number of Ford’s powered by sunshine. Through this partnership, Ford customers are entitled to a $750 rebate on SunPower solar systems to generate clean, solar energy for their home and electric vehicle.

Mike Tinskey will be speaking on the panel "Defining the Connected Home: Entertainment, Security, Health, Smart Home" on Tuesday, May 19 at 9:45 AM during CONNECTIONS in San Francisco, CA. Other companies on the panel include Cox, Honeywell, Nortek Security & Control, Panasonic Corporation of North America, and Pandora.

He will also be speaking during “Connected Cars: The Next Smart Platform” that afternoon at 4:45 PM, where he will be joined by a representative from QNX Software Systems.

For more information on CONNECTIONS speakers, sessions, or topics, visit www.connectionsus.com. Registration is still open!

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