As reported by Yahoo Autos Google and Ford are teaming up to build a self driving car. Google and Ford will create a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles with Google’s technology, a huge step by both companies toward a new business of automated ride sharing. Some reports are also suggesting that Ford will announce the new partnership during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2016.
The story is still very much unconfirmed, but we know that by pairing with Ford, the search-engine giant avoids spending billions of dollars and several years that building its own automotive manufacturing expertise would require. Earlier this year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the company was looking for manufacturing partners that would use the company’s self-driving system, which it believes could someday eliminate the roughly 33,000 annual deaths on U.S. roads.
Google declined to comment on the rumors, and a Ford spokesman told Yahoo that the company works with a number of different firms on experimental projects, adding: “We keep these discussions private for obvious competitive reasons, and we do not comment on speculation.”
Google already has several links to Ford; the head of the self-driving car project, John Krafcik, worked for 14 years at Ford, including a stint as head of truck engineering, and several other ex-Ford employees work in the unit as well. Former Ford chief executive Alan Mulally joined Google’s board last year.
Google has been testing various self-driving car models for a long time, logging 1.3 million autonomous driving miles since the project began in 2012.