Google in talks with world car makers on autonomous cars

Google has begun discussions with most of the world's top automakers and has assembled a team of traditional and non-traditional suppliers to speed up efforts to bring self-driving cars to market by 2020, a top Google executive has said. Those manufacturers are said to include General Motors, Ford Motor, Toyota, Daimler and Volkswagen. "We'd be remiss not to talk to ... the biggest auto manufacturers. They've got a lot to offer," Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car project, said in an
January 15, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
1691 Google has begun discussions with most of the world's top automakers and has assembled a team of traditional and non-traditional suppliers to speed up efforts to bring self-driving cars to market by 2020, a top Google executive has said.

Those manufacturers are said to include 948 General Motors, 278 Ford Motor, 1686 Toyota, 2069 Daimler and 994 Volkswagen.

"We'd be remiss not to talk to ... the biggest auto manufacturers. They've got a lot to offer," Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car project, said in an interview before speaking at an industry conference.

Google has not determined whether it will build its own self-driving vehicles or function more as a provider of systems and software to established vehicle manufacturers. Google's self-driving prototype cars, he said, were built in Detroit by engineering and specialty manufacturing company Roush.

Google shortly will begin deploying a test fleet of fully functioning prototypes of its pod-like self-driving car, which dispenses with such familiar automotive parts as steering wheel, brakes and accelerator pedal. While each of the Google prototypes will have a ‘test driver’ on board, the cars have no provision for human intervention in steering or braking.

Urmson said self-driving cars represent a ‘transformative’ moment in the evolution of transportation, an opportunity to extend motoring to blind, elderly and disabled persons who otherwise could not drive. "You're really changing the relationship you have with transportation. You're changing what it means to get around."
Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Russia invests in ITS technology
    May 11, 2012
    Russia’s transport systems are developing on a grand scale with ITS central to the plans, thanks in no small part to a recently relaunched ITS Russia. Jon Masters interviews the organisation’s chief executive officer Vladimir Kryuchkov Over coming years many of the biggest deployments of new technology for transport are likely to be seen in Russia. For a political and economic superpower, the world’s biggest country has only recently started to harness ITS for the good of its transport networks. But the sca
    Read More
  • Data collection becoming a crowded market
    October 26, 2017
    New ways of gathering data can revolutionise traffic and travel management, so is the writing on the wall for the traditional methods? Jon Masters reports. There are two big industries that stand to be revolutionised by massive increases in data – healthcare and transportation, says Finlay Clarke, the UK managing director of the smartphone sat nav traffic app, Waze. “At present we’re really only at the start of how cities, in particular, will be transformed,” he says.
    Read More
  • Abertis offers breath of fresh air
    December 20, 2022
    The idea of congestion charging zones in cities is well-established. But in Valencia, Spain, the authorities are considering something slightly different – and it has clear implications for the road user charging debate. Adam Hill talks to Christian Barrientos of Abertis Mobility Services
    Read More
  • Hyperloop: from sci-fi to transport policy
    April 16, 2020
    The future is here. While it has long looked like something from a sci-fi movie, Graham Anderson investigates a technology whose time might have come.
    Read More

Highlighted Content