In a few more years, when someone asks about your Ford car or truck, you'll be able to provide one more piece of information besides fuel economy and safety features

A new partnership between Google and Ford announced this week will bring Android to millions of new Ford and Lincoln vehicles, with the first models coming in 2023

According to Ford's announcement, the six-year partnership will make Google Ford's preferred cloud provider This means that Ford and Lincoln vehicles will be equipped with Google's apps and services, including maps and assistants The services will be available as soon as the car is purchased, eliminating the need to install a phone to activate the services

Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa will still be included, so iOS owners will not be left out in the cold, but the focus will only be on Android services There is clearly a need for flexibility across different devices, and fortunately Google and Ford seem to recognize that

In addition to in-car cooperation, Google and Ford have formed a partnership called Team Upshift This initiative will work with third-party app producers to provide more services and programs for cars with the Android OS pre-installed These apps and services can obtain data from the cars in which they are installed, but the companies stress that no personal data will be shared with the developers [Google and Ford say they are partnering to "push the boundaries of modernization, unlock personalized customer experiences, and drive disruptive data-driven opportunities" According to Ford Vice President David McClelland, that means a new "retail experience" for new car purchases

"There are many uses, including modernizing product development, improving manufacturing and supply chain management, using computer vision, and AI for training employees to inspect equipment on assembly lines," Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, announced the partnership In a post announcing the partnership, he said

"We're also working together to create new business models for data

The applications this partnership could create are wide-ranging There could be new programs to help drivers track and diagnose problems with their vehicles, or a series of analytics stored in the cloud to assist technicians when they begin looking at Ford and Lincoln vehicles to diagnose potential problems