Will Ford, Google Team Up on Self-Driving Cars?
CARS.COM — A new report says Ford and Google will announce plans to collaborate on self-driving cars. Citing three unnamed sources said to be “familiar with the plans,” Yahoo Autos says Ford will announce the collaboration at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show, which takes place the week of Jan. 4.
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It remains to be seen how the partnership will unfold. Ford opened a Silicon Valley lab in June 2012, and Google debuted its Snoopy-faced, two-seat autonomous runabout — devoid of manual driving controls — about two years later. Roush Industries, a Ford supplier, has built the low-speed cars in Michigan. Ford doubled down in 2015, opening a new Silicon Valley research center in January and announcing just this month that it received a permit from California to test self-driving cars.
Yahoo reports that Google’s self-driving fleet amounts to 53 cars in California and Texas, with 1.3 million self-driving miles logged. Google co-founder Sergey Brin told USA Today on Sept. 29 that the tech giant “will need to partner with top-tier OEMs” — that is, automakers — to build a fleet of self-driving cars.
Ford spokesman Alan Hall declined to comment on any specifics.
“We have been and will continue working with many companies and discussing a variety of subjects related to our Ford Smart Mobility plan,” Hall told Cars.com. “We keep these discussions private for obvious competitive reasons, and we do not comment on speculation.”
A Google spokesperson also declined to comment.
