Ford boosts spending, doubles staff for self-driving cars

By Paul Lienert DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co is hiking investments in Silicon Valley technology firms and more than doubling the size of its Palo Alto, California, research team to help speed development of self-driving cars, the automaker said on Tuesday. Ford and Baidu Inc , China's largest internet company, have jointly invested $150 million in Velodyne, which makes laser-based sensors that are a major building block in self-driving cars. Earlier this year, Ford invested in another Silic