Search engine major Google is gearing up for more partnerships to speed up its self-driving car project. Alphabet's Google wants to implement the project in association with automobile manufacturers and suppliers. The Google self-driving cars assembled in 2015 are being tested on city roads and highways.
However, John Krafcik, president ofGoogle self-driving car project, didn't name the automakers and suppliers. Krafcik is the newly hired President for the self-driving project. Krafcik was at the Detroit auto show and said to auto industry executives: "We hope to work with many you guys."
According to a report by Yahoo NEWS, Google had worked with automotive suppliers and contract manufacturers on small fleet of prototype self-driving cars. Krafcik further added: "No one goes this alone. We're going to be partnering more and more and more." He hopes to forge small alliances in 2016.
Google is hoping that self-driving cars would be useful for 40 million American senior citizens. Roush Enterprises in 2015 assembled about 100 Google cars. These assembled Google cars are being tested on city roads and highways mostly Mountain View, California and Austin. Continental, Bosch and LG Electronics have extended their technology support to these assembled Google cars.
Google wants to be associated with many manufacturers and suppliers as it involves so many parts and partners for making a self-driving car. "It takes many parts and partners to make a self-driving car. You can't do it alone," said Krafcik as reported by Detroit Free Press.
Google would develop the software for the self-driving cars, while Ford will take care of manufacturing the vehicles and system needed for automotive parts. Ford's Executive Chairman Bill Ford will pivot the company to avoid being disrupted by self-driving technology. Uber technologies Inc is gaining the popularity across the world. People find on-demand transportation services are very useful and this is lessening desire to have own car.
According to a report by Silicon ANGLE, the partnership proposal on Google and Ford is still on table. The market rumors state that Ford and Google may launch a joint venture for autonomous driving sector and this would be confirmed at CES show in Las Vegas. But it was not announced as expected. However, both the companies are still working on several modalities.
Self-driving cars are small, light pod cars that were put up at Detroit auto show looked nothing like the sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickups. Google's self-driving car project earlier raised eyebrows of many. But, Google is going ahead with its project. Delphi Automotive, Continental AG and Mobileye NV are jockeying to define and led development of vehicles with machine vision.
General Motors, Tesla Motors, Daimler AG and Nissan companies are also involved in developing high tech cars that allow hands-free driving under certain conditions. These vehicles do require driver to steer the vehicle in complex situations in city driving.
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