Everyone in the auto industry has been trying to figure out what’s up with this Ford-Google partnership. Both of those giant companies have remained relatively quiet on the topic, although the prevailing speculation was that it has something to do with, naturally, autonomous car technology. Whatever it is, it’s obviously a big deal for Ford?the world of personal transportation is changing drastically, and Ford (and GM, and everybody else) does not want to be left behind. 
But in Ford’s keynote address at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, CEO Mark Fields never once mentioned the search giant by name?even though he name-dropped plenty of other Silicon Valley so-and-sos.
“We’re completely rethinking how we approach the business, with one foot in today, and one foot in tomorrow,” Fields said at the start of the keynote address, affirming that the automaker plans to invest $4.5 billion in electric vehicle technology to bring 13 EV models to market by 2020. There were the expected tech show announcements?talk about Ford’s small-scale experiments in smartphone-powered ride-sharing programs, with buzzy names like “flexible car ownership” and “multi-modal mobility solutions.” Ford has been playing around with these concepts for a while now.
And there were some substantive in-dash tech announcements too. Sync 3, Ford’s infotainment system, will boast Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability fo...