Ford Motor is teaming with drone maker DJI to focus on drone-to-vehicle communications that can be used in emergency zones that are not accessible to ground vehicles, while also exploring technology that will link vehicles with Amazon Echo and smart home platform Wink.

The automaker is also tripling to 30 this year its fleet of Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles, using new low-cost Lidar sensors from Velodyne in California. The car will have fewer sensors — two versus the usual four — as a result of the Velodyne design.

Ford is one of many car makers that are aiming to automate various functions of vehicles and integrating them with smartphones and smart appliances. On Monday, the company said Apple CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto would be supported on its Sync in-vehicle connectivity system.

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