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Ford and Baidu invest $150 million in connected car tech

Ford Motor Company is teaming up with China's largest search engine, Baidu, to invest a combined total of $150 million into Velodyne's LiDAR technology for connected vehicles.

The investment will go towards lowering the production costs of the Velodyne's LiDAR sensors, laser based sensors that perform similar to radar, to help accelerate its adoption into connected vehicles, according to an Aug. 16 press release.

Earlier this year, Baidu announced that it was creating a self-driving car team in Silicon Valley to compete with Google's efforts to develop autonomous vehicles.

The investment comes at a time when experts predict manufactures may not have connected cars properly secured for another three years as researchers continue to find high profile exploits in vehicles already on the market.

Baidu also has a history of security concerns, earlier this year Citizen Lab reported that the Chinese browser practically gives personal identifiable information away when it transmits unencrypted user data.  

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