Mark Fields, President and CEO, Ford Motor Company, delivers the opening keynote address at the 2015 International CES.

Ford is not just looking for ways to make cars smarter, it’s trying to change the way people around the world get from place to place. The automaker introduced its plans to do that as well as addressing its progress on autonomous vehicles as well at the Consumer Electronic Show today in Las Vegas.

Ford CEO Mark Fields told a packed house during his keynote address at CES that the automaker is actively pursuing an autonomous vehicle. However, he noted it’s not a race to get done first, but more important to get it done right and make it affordable.

“Our priority is not in making marketing claims or being in a race for the first autonomous car on the road,” Fields said. “Our priority is in making the first Ford autonomous vehicle accessible to the masses and truly enhancing customers’ lives.”

A fully autonomous Ford Fusion Hybrid research vehicle is undergoing road testing. The vehicle uses the same semi-autonomous technology in Ford vehicles today, while adding four LiDAR sensors to generate a real-time 3D map of the surrounding environment.

In addition to the ongoing efforts toward producing a self-driving vehicle, the automaker is looking for technologies that not only make cars smarter, but also the environment around them more intelligent as part of its Smart Mobility Plan.

The plan is “to use innovation to take it to the next level in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience and big data,” the company said.

To do that, the automaker is involved in 25 mobility experiments around the world. Ford is leading 14 of the 25 while the remaining 11 are being run by outside entities as part of the company’s Innovate Mobility Challenge Series.

“We are driving innovation in every part of our business to be both a product and mobility company – and, ultimately, to change the way the world moves just as our founder Henry Ford did 111 years ago,” Fields said.

That innovation includes ongoing “experiments” around the world, including eight in North America, nine in Europe and Africa, seven in Asia and one in South America. Each experiment is designed to anticipate what customers will want and need in tomorrow’s transportation ecosystem.

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The 25 experiments address four global megatrends – explosive population growth, an expanding middle class, air quality and public health concerns, and changing customer attitudes and priorities – challenging today’s transportation model and limiting personal mobility, especially in urban areas, according to the company.

Some of the programs focus on the movement of people whether its by car or truck or even bicycles. The company’s “Big Data Drive” tracks the driving of 200 Ford employees in metro Detroit and examines the data to help them optimize vehicle performance.

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Other initiatives include gathering data on bicycle usage in Palo Alto, California, to determine how alternate modes of transports may best be used in urban areas. Other program range from car sharing programs in London and Bangalore, India, to improving automated parking in Atlanta as well as other ways to better control traffic in large cities.

Automakers can show up at CES and not bring something for attendees to gawk over. Ford showed off its latest iteration of Sync, Sync 3, its most advanced vehicle connectivity system which has a more conversational speech recognition technology as well as a new touch screen designed to more closely resemble the user’s smartphone.

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“Ford is delivering an easier way for customers to stay connected,” said Raj Nair, Ford chief technical officer and group vice president, Global Product Development. “Sync 3 is another step forward in delivering connectivity features customers most want, and they tell us this kind of technology is an important part of their decision to buy our vehicles.”