Google and Ford have partnered to bring together their software know-how with their auto building know-how as the launch of autonomous cars moves one step closer.
Justin Hyde and Sharon Carty report in Yahoo! Autos that Google and Ford Motors have launched a joint venture to leverage each of their strengths toward the development of self-driving cars. Google has already been testing its self-driving cars on roads in California and Texas, but this partnership moves them closer to actually manufacturing capacity.
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.
As reported in Fortune, the immediate plans for Google’s self-driving cars appears to be a taxi or car-sharing service similar to Uber or Lyft that would compete with those companies in urban areas.
FULL STORY: Google Pairs With Ford To Build Self-Driving Cars
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