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.<div><a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~ff/reuters/technologyNews?a=J5h_Hc-aPrM:cEo8uPLe2Xw:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/reuters/technologyNews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~ff/reuters/technologyNews?a=J5h_Hc-aPrM:cEo8uPLe2Xw:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/reuters/technologyNews?i=J5h_Hc-aPrM:cEo8uPLe2Xw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~ff/reuters/technologyNews?a=J5h_Hc-aPrM:cEo8uPLe2Xw:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/reuters/technologyNews?i=J5h_Hc-aPrM:cEo8uPLe2Xw:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0" /></a></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/reuters/technologyNews/~4/J5h_Hc-aPrM" height="1" width="1" alt="" />