Prasad has patented over 16 solutions that help the driver do things like search out a friend's location in real time, listen to Internet radio, browse through favourite music and even get alerts on diabetes and obesity.
He is the brain behind Sync, Ford's incar digital solution that helps passengers figure out the best traffic route, read email messages, perform web searches and even tweet and shop online, all through an eight-inch touchscreen.
Over a million Ford cars have Sync - the solution developed by Prasad along with other engineers, worldwide. Ford's 'what's next guy' is helping it make one of auto industry's biggest shifts - from manufacturing pure mechanical machines to making intelligent cars that use as much brain (software) as brawn.
"Alan (Ford CEO) says Ford is a technology company - infotronics is at the centre of 12th floor corner room discussions in the company now," says Prasad. Last year, during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Alan Mulally said the Sync system will soon do inside a car, anything a computer or a smartphone could do outside it.
Over the next five years, Mulally wants 80% of Ford's US cars to have Sync features. The market for Sync-like tools will touch $40 billion in 2016, up from $6 billion last year, according to research firm Gartner. By bringing in high-end software into car cabins to create intelligent applications, Prasad is trying to make the best of this opportunity.
With more applications bundled into cars, Ford is trying to do to cars what Apple did to phones and computers. "Our stories (Ford and Apple) are quite similar; it's a good analogy, except that we don't own any operating system," says Prasad. Sync, developed jointly by Prasad's team and software maker Microsoft , was first released in 2007.
Nearly 60 million people born between 1981 and 1995 - or Generation Y - have grown up on the web. Prasad's efforts to offer seamless social media connectivity, on-demand music and other features are helping Ford woo younger buyers.
THE 'LAST INCH' PROBLEM
This February, nearly three years after Ford launched Sync, rival General Motors rolled out a similar system called MyLink that uses a seven-inch LCD screen.
GM had actually launched OnStart - that offered text and email messaging inside cars - in 1996. But Sync overshadowed it. An engineering graduate from the Madras University (1980), Prasad went to the US in 1987 for a course in computer engineering from Washington State University. He followed it up with a PhD in computer engineering from Rutgers University, New Jersey. "I got into cars almost by accident," he recalls.
When he first received a call from Ford for a job in 1996, Prasad was working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory . When asked if he knew anything about cars, Prasad answered in negative. That's why we need you, the interviewer told him. Ford, which had 15,000 automotive engineers then, wanted computer professionals.
At that time, Ford was trying to redefine itself by researching on solutions that could woo back young customers and help the carmaker regain some of the lost ground. Over the years, Toyota and GM had been aggressively launching new variants, and it was critical for Ford to start architecting the next generation of cars.
"We are entering the automotive era of 'connected vehicles' which allows consumers to connect their digital media, services and applications to the automobile using their mobile devices and the cloud," says Gartner analyst Thilo Koslowski.
"The goal is to enable content consumption, creation and sharing in the vehicle so that consumers can extend their digital lifestyles into the car."Going forward, over the next 18-24 months, Sync will try to solve problems of delivering social media and other experiences at nearly 70 miles an hour inside a car, a challenge Prasad describes as the 'last inch' problem.
Solving the 'last inch' problem also forced Prasad to look beyond Ford. Last year, Prasad involved a few students at the University of Michigan who developed a location- based service called Caravan Track, which informs motorists about their friends' locations in real time.
The service has already been tested on Ford Fiesta 2011 model named 'American Journey', or AJ, that even tweeted experiences throughout a trip undertaken between Ann Arbor Michigan and San Mateo California last year. "We are taking a good look at social media and gaming among other potential capabilities in the future," says Prasad. Prasad is looking forward to a NASA trip later this month.
"Next week, I'll get a chance to be a 10-year-old once again, I'll be spending two days at NASA's Johnson Space Centre at Houston, Texas."
