This article was published on January 11, 2016

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


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]

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