Google may be partnering with Ford to accelerate its autonomous car ambitions

Ford, which recently opened a Silicon Valley R&D facility, may be partnering with Google on future autonomous car initiatives.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Ford is also looking into making autonomous cars a branch of the company rather than central to its efforts. A partnership with Google would help it develop self-driving cars for fleet services as well as ride-sharing.

In this deal, Ford is said to be working on software and hardware for the cars, while Google would provide the autonomous car software.

A deal like this would ramp up Google’s existing work, and really — many have seen this coming. Save for starting its own car company from scratch (which would take years and more resources than you can imagine), Google (aka, Alphabet) would need a partnership.

➤ Ford’s Chairman Is on Quest to Reinvent Auto Maker [The Wall Street Journal]