Bill Ford: Michigan Central Station must be more than just a restoration

In about 2005, Bill Ford determined that the future wasn’t being invented in Detroit.

It was a time when he’d joined the board of eBay and was traveling to the Silicon Valley every month.

The best and the brightest and all that money and intensity were flowing there, the Ford Motor Co. executive chair and great-grandson of Henry Ford told a sold-out crowd at the Detroit Free Press "Breakfast Club" event Wednesday morning at the Daxton Hotel in Birmingham.

He went to Tesla at that time and saw what was then a very crude sports car and thought it was interesting, but couldn’t get anyone at his own company interested in it. A few years later, he gave a TED Talk about the changes coming to the industry and found it alarming that “nothing was happening here.”

'Your jaw will drop' when you enter the train station

Eventually, around 2018, the idea of remaking one of Detroit’s landmarks, what the rest of the world and many younger people in this region saw as a symbol of blight, came up in conversations, but he realized renovating Michigan Central Station needed to be more than just a restoration.

“It had to be the place where the future of transportation was reinvented one more time and that the Motor City became the Motor City again,” he said. “We’re in a war for talent. Michigan is, our industry is, Ford is.”

Attracting people from the coasts is a challenge, and a nondescript workplace in the suburbs is a tough sell, he said.

So on June 6, when the train station reopens to the public, it will mean the return of a landmark that should help in the battle for talent as well as provide the community with something to marvel at.

When you walk in, Ford predicted, “your jaw will drop.”

In an hourlong discussion with Carol Cain, who writes a column for the Free Press and hosts CBS Detroit's "Michigan Matters" program, Ford talked about the train station and what its revival is intended to bring to Detroit. He also addressed electric and self-driving vehicles and his thoughts on the kinds of leaders he admires. (Answer? Those who are genuine.)

'We're not shoving anything down anyone's throat'

This moment for the auto industry is challenging, he said, describing whipsawing from politicians in a soundbite-driven era. But ultimately, “we shouldn’t let Washington decide,” he said as Cain asked about an EV market that has cooled a bit in the United States.

Ford noted that EVs will be the right equation for some customers, though not all, and this transition from gas-powered vehicles is coming, though perhaps not as fast as some expected. He noted the much higher speed of adoption in Europe and China.

But he pushed back against the idea that the company is pursuing a strategy at odds with what customers want.

“We’re not shoving anything down anyone’s throat.” And he talked up the company's investments in hybrids as well.

It was clear to him early on, Ford said, that this transition would happen in fits and starts.

On self-driving vehicles, Ford said the technology would continue to work its way into everyday vehicles over a much longer time frame than perhaps initially predicted, which is probably a better option than all of the early hype suggested.

But driving is still fun for Ford, and he vowed that “as long as I’m alive, we’ll make Mustangs.”

It just happens to be, Cain had noted, the 60th birthday of the Mustang, and Ford will be taking his favorite, a 1964 Indy pace car that his uncle, Benson Ford, had driven, for a cruise around Los Angeles with Jay Leno behind the wheel for an upcoming episode of the comedian’s show, "Jay Leno's Garage."

Ford, who will be inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in September, also delivered messages for some students in attendance from Detroit’s Pershing High School, telling them to follow their brains as well as their passions.

And to the crowd of business leaders and others, he said the Detroit area has an ingredient that many other places lack. Those other locations don’t have the people who will work night and day, caring about the community.

“People love our region, they love Detroit and they want to do everything they can to make it better,” he said.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bill Ford on Detroit train station, EVs at Freep Breakfast Club event