The New Yorker - USA (2022-01-31)

THENEWYORKER,JANUARY31, 2022 47

other—the software that controls seat
movement can’t talk to the software that
controls the door latch, say.”
Rather than E.V.s, Farley thinks of
Ford’s future products as digital vehicles.
Instead of depreciating from the mo-
ment you drive your new purchase off
the lot, “the product will get better every
day,” with regular software updates, al-
lowing Ford to enjoy the kind of con-
nected relationship with its customers
that tech and gaming companies have.
But how easy will that be?
Ford has long maintained a symbolic
relationship with its customers, through
ubiquitous advertisements (the company
spent close to two billion dollars on ad-
vertising in 2020) that appeal to patrio-
tism, family, helping others, and, for me,
a piercing nostalgia for my boyhood on
a farm. Ford buyers “shop for meanings,

not just stuff,” Laura Oswald, the author

of “Marketing Semiotics,” and a Ford

consultant, told me. Yet the company has

never maintained a direct relationship

with its customers in the way Big Tech

has. Also, it sells its vehicles through deal-

ers. The intimate relationship between a

connected device, an app, and its user

can’t be sustained through myth and sym-

bolic consumption alone. If cybersecurity,

for example, becomes a major issue in a

world of networked digital vehicles, as

many predict, would I trust Ford to pro-

tect my electric truck just because it’s

“Built Ford Tough”? All in all, Ford faces

a monumental undertaking.

When Farley and I spoke, I was in a

Ford conference room in Dearborn and

Farley was on a big screen at the end of

the room, at his desk in his Detroit apart-

ment. (His wife and their three children

live in London but will be joining him

in Detroit later this year.) Farley admit-

ted that moving to a software-defined

driving experience was hard for people

coming from the hardware world.

“I have to tell you, it’s an overwhelm-

ing job,” he said, then paused, tearing up.

“It’s all-consuming, so that’s why I’m

emotional. I miss my family—I wish I

could be a better father and husband and

go mountain biking and hiking, but that’s

all gone now in the service of this tran-

sition.” He took another long moment.

“But there are great American engineers,”

he went on at last. “And no one knows

their names.”

Farley was referring to, among oth-

ers, Doug Field, a superstar engineer who

began his career at Ford in the nineties,

went on to Apple, where he designed

hardware for the Mac, and to Tesla, where

he led the software-development team

for the Model 3. A few years ago, he re-

turned to Apple, where he worked as

V.P. of Special Projects (“I don’t know

what it was,” Farley told me, “but it has

something to do with a car”) before re-

joining Ford in September as chief ad-

vanced technology and embedded-sys-

tems officer, responsible for delivering

“seamless, delightful and always-on ex-

periences” to drivers, according to the

Ford Media Center.

Farley said that he had been at a race-

track with Field the previous weekend.

“Everyone was saying, ‘Oh, there’s Jim

Farley. He runs Ford, he races Cobras.’

I was with perhaps the most important

American engineer of the past hundred

years, and they didn’t even know who he

is.” Field, who declined to be interviewed,

seems intent on keeping it that way.

F

ord lent me a Mustang Mach-E for

several days, so that I could give elec-

tric touring a try. I invited my twenty-

three-year-old son, Harry, along. Ford

dropped off the sleek four-door in Brook-

lyn. Our destination, the Vermont farm,

was two hundred and sixty miles away.

In theory, this Mach-E, with an adver-

tised range of around three hundred

miles, could make it, but the car’s navi-

gation system told me that I was going

to need to recharge partway. The ma-

jority of E.V. batteries, the single most

expensive component of the vehicle, are

rated to last no more than eight to ten

years, on average. To preserve a battery’s

Goats have pupils flat as slits in their irises.

A goat is more likely to ram a man

than a ram. Our goat pooped flowers

whether we fed it meat from the table

or the butcher’s block or even if it ate a rodent

at the roadside after scaring the buzzards off.

Buzzards because when you put an ear

to the bird it sounded like bees in a hive.

The average goat is well known

for pinpoint balance in precarious places,

for climbing trees with hooves like ballerina

shoes & for escaping escape-proof enclosures.

When grazing undisturbed, goats maintain

social distance, but sheep huddle together.

Goats don’t care for rain, rivers, or seas.

Goats converse with people about as well

as dogs & horses do. When your grandfather’s

grandfather was alive, he used to say,

“I’ll be here to eat the goat that eats the grass

on your grave.” Many years later you were born

stubbornly side-eyeing the doctor at your delivery.

Maybe your mother had been given a magic

goat’s milk by the midwife. I brought flowers

& the bells & babbling of a goat.

You spoke immediately as well as a goat.

I’m sorry I have always listened so poorly.

—Terrance Hayes