In September 2016, Ford disclosed that it has acquired the private bus service named Chariot located in San Francisco.  Ford desires to broaden its business to be less dependent on automobile manufacturing and selling, and plans to use forward integration more often to accomplish this need.  Chariot uses more than 100 Ford Transit vans to shuttle customers all over the San Francisco Bay area.  Ford is expanding Chariot to service five additional cities within the next eighteen months.  In San Francisco, riders use Chariot oftentimes in lieu of using the city’s crowded public buses, especially at peak hours.

Source:  Based on Tim Higgins, “Ford Acquires Bus Service,” Wall Street Journal, September 10-11, 2016, B3.