Ford Chooses a Detroit Base to Take On Silicon Valley<br />DETROIT — In a bid to link its historic past with its future products, Ford Motor said on Thursday<br />that it had chosen a site near downtown Detroit as the base for a high-level team working on self-driving and electric cars.<br />Ford has long been a major presence in southeastern Michigan with its headquarters and factories,<br />but the company has had minimal operations in Detroit — where its founder, Henry Ford, built a Model T assembly plant more than a century ago.<br />Fiat Chrysler operates a major assembly plant in the city limits,<br />and a few years ago moved its Midwestern marketing staff into a downtown office building.<br />“Returning to Detroit is particularly meaningful because it is where my great-grandfather originally set out to pursue his passion<br />and where we always have called our home,” William C. Ford Jr., the company’s chairman, said at a media event announcing the plans.<br />G. M.’s headquarters is on the Detroit River, and the company operates an assembly plant that is partly within the city.<br />The company said it would move more than 200 employees next year into a renovated garment<br />factory near the former site of Tiger Stadium in the Corktown neighborhood.<br />Now, Ford wants to be part of the surprising comeback of Detroit, which has experienced a rush of rehabilitation of vacant buildings<br />and an overall business expansion since emerging from municipal bankruptcy in 2014.
