#carr-e

This author absolutely loves Ford Europe’s extracurricular mobility projects, in the same way someone might enjoy Tommy Wiseau’s The Room or watching Orson Welles’ drunken wine advertisements for Paul Masson.

While certainly not as good as the automaker’s noise-canceling doghouse, lane-keeping bed or slow-moving Carr-E puck (my all-time favorite “mobility innovation”), Ford’s new shopping cart isn’t far behind in terms of accidental amusement. It just happens to have enough practical applications to avoid being hysterical.

In what could only be defined as an act of God urging the automaker to stop calling itself a mobility company, gusting winds ripped the 20-foot Ford logo off the company’s Dearborn headquarters.

How do I know that it was willful cosmic intervention and not simply dumb luck? Because a day earlier, Ford Motor Co. released another implausible mobility solution called “Autolivery” as if it were actively working on the technology.

Autolivery is a delivery service where an autonomous van drives a package to your home within hours and then releases a drone that carries it the rest of the way. Ford showcased the concept at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, along with the TriCiti and patently ridiculous Carr-E urban transportation devices. It’s my belief the universe finally had enough of Ford’s mobility marketing nonsense and removed the sign as a warning.