About 350 veteran engineers help Ford top J.D. Power survey
Over the past three years, Ford has hired around 350 veteran engineers, including former employees and specialists from suppliers.
These experts, including those Ford calls "gray beard" engineers, are now mentoring staff and improving Ford's AI tools with their real-world know-how.
Thanks to this move, Ford jumped ahead of Toyota and Honda to become the top mainstream brand in the JD Power Initial Quality Survey.
Charles Poon: Ford overrelied on AI
Ford openly admitted they put too much faith in AI alone for quality control.
Charles Poon, vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said, "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product."
With the veterans tweaking the tech, models like F-150, Super Duty, and Mustang are performing better than ever.
Ford still leads US recalls
Even with these improvements, Ford is still leading US recalls and expects about $1 billion in warranty and material costs for this year.
But Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra explained most recalls come from older issues, and reassured that newer vehicles are becoming more reliable thanks to these changes.