Will American Center for Mobility live up to its promise?

DETROIT -- Less than two years ago, the American Center for Mobility — hailed as the world's preeminent proving ground for advanced safety and automated vehicle technologies — opened in Ypsilanti Township.

The center was touted as an example of how public-private partnerships can solve tomorrow's challenges. It's run by a nonprofit in conjunction with the state's Department of Transportation, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor's Spark business accelerator and Ypsilanti Township. The goal was to ensure that the 70 percent of all U.S. automotive research and development work stays in Michigan as the industry moves toward driverless cars.

The state approved $35 million for the nonprofit that controls the joint partnership for the completed first phase of construction, with the total cost of the center to cost at least $135 million.

So far, the road has been bumpy. The timeline for widespread autonomous vehicle deployment continues to be pushed back. Many executives believed driverless vehicles would be widely available by 2025, but most experts believe now it will be 2030 or later. The center also competes against Michigan's public roadways, which are open and free to autonomous vehicle testing thanks to legislation signed into law by former Gov. Rick Snyder in 2016.

Only six months after it opened, much of its top leadership was terminated, including founding CEO John Maddox, who was let go in August 2018 with a $200,000 severance, according to court records. The center's board wanted to "go another direction," Maddox told the Washtenaw County court during his divorce proceedings last year. In February, the board hired Michael Noblett, global segment lead of automotive industry sales for Santa Clara, California-based semiconductor manufacturer Intel Corp., to replace Maddox.

Several sources, including those interviewed here, declined to discuss why Maddox and the other officials were terminated.

Maddox then landed a position in December 2018 at ride-hailing provider Lyft in San Francisco, where he is now senior director of autonomous safety and compliance, according to his LinkedIn profile. Maddox leads an entire new division focused on safety and compliance within the company's policy, legal and self-driving operation efforts, the company said at the time. 

Since his departure, ACM has sought to increase users and build out its offerings, including an operations center to house companies looking for a more permanent presence on the grounds. The construction of the operations center is currently under planning.
Mark Chaput

"It's not taken off as quickly as we had hoped," Mark Chaput, COO of ACM, told Crain's Detroit Business, an affiliate of Automotive News, at an event on the grounds on Oct. 25.

"We were not significantly surprised as we're competing with free. Places like MCity and other proving grounds can be significantly cheaper depending on what users are looking for, so we have to work for it."

Paul Krutko, president and CEO of Ann Arbor Spark and ACM board member, said ACM is out of startup mode now and is ready to welcome a broader base of users.

"The thinking behind (ACM) was it was something Southeast Michigan needed to do to be competitive with the rest of the world," Krutko said. "The U.K., the Koreans, Chinese and the EU are all spending big national government dollars to build this type of facility. ACM is an anchor to position Southeast Michigan into the future. Collectively, this organization is going to be very important to the economic opportunity of our region. We're now well positioned and I expect this facility to grow and get more and more usage."

The stakes for its success are high. Seven companies, including Toyota Motor Corp. and supplier Visteon Corp., paid $5 million apiece to be considered founding members of the facility. "Supporting" member Subaru Corp. and five other companies paid $2 million for ongoing use of the track. It's not just for traditional automakers and suppliers. AT&T and Microsoft have been using the facility to advance next-generation automotive connectivity.

ACM is a 500-acre testbed with a 2.5-mile highway loop, a multi-lane tunnel, testing garages, urban environments and other features.

Roughly 200 acres remain undeveloped, Chaput confirmed.

Upton Bowden, director of advanced technology for Visteon, said the convenience of ACM, located roughly seven miles from Visteon's headquarters in Van Buren Township, has made its investment worth it.

"We get quite a bit of value out of the facility," Bowden said. "Its proximity to our offices and its offerings provide us with what we were really looking for in a proving ground."

Visteon previously tested its advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous technology at UM's MCity, a 32-acre mock city and proving ground on the university's North Campus in Ann Arbor.

Also proving to be useful to Visteon is the availability of the resources at ACM. Bowden said the supplier can get access to ACM any day it wants, which is about five to 10 times per month. It costs roughly the same as MCity because Visteon can rent the space on a shared basis, meaning other users can be on site at the same time as Visteon — though other users are only on site about half the time, Bowden said. This, of course, speaks to how infrequently the site is used, but Bowden doesn't anticipate that to last much longer.

"From our standpoint, we don't struggle reserving days," Bowden said. "But we look at the facility as basically new. One thing we know is that the volumes for ADAS and automotive driving system is going to see rapid growth. As that happens, the need for a facility like ACM is going to grow too."

Chaput said interest in ACM is steadily growing as it settles into regular operations after construction.

"We've had more visits (from potential users) in the last four months than we saw in the first year," Chaput said.

To supplement industry demand, ACM has branched out into government contracts. In 2018, the center secured a government contract to study truck platooning — a group of trucks accelerating, braking, etc. simultaneously through automated systems — with the U.S. Army and Tank Research, Development and Engineering Center, University of Michigan-Dearborn, MDOT, U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Alabama's Auburn University.

It's also partnered with MCity, MDOT and the city of Detroit to study automated driving simulations with plans to recreate Detroit city roads on the site.

"The use is daily at this point. We have 10 different environments available," Chaput said. "Yes, we've been a site in transition, but we're starting to really establish operations and are really opening up this facility to the entire industry."