Slashdot Mirror
Google, Detroit Split On Autonomous Cars
An anonymous reader writes in with this story explaining the contentious history between Google and Detroit automakers over the future of self-driving cars. In 2012, a small team of Google Inc engineers and business staffers met with several of the world's largest car makers, to discuss partnerships to build self-driving cars. In one meeting, both sides were enthusiastic about the futuristic technology, yet it soon became clear that they would not be working together. The Internet search company and the automaker disagreed on almost every point, from car capabilities and time needed to get it to market to extent of collaboration. It was as if the two were "talking a different language," recalls one person who was present. As Google expands beyond Web search and seeks a foothold in the automotive market, the company's eagerness has begun to reek of arrogance to some in Detroit, who see danger as well as promise in Silicon Valley.
Really? Perhaps the folks from Detroit would perhaps learn something if they didn't act like they knew *EVERYTHING* about making cars. Have you seen the infotainment systems Detroit has stuck in their cars? Seriously? You guys should be listening to Google, Tesla, etc.
The entire Detroit car scene has never been about transportation. It is a sales vehicle (sorry) for egos. I think Google, much as I dislike them, are looking at cars as transportation. Too mundane for the Detroit crowd... but much more practical.
As Google expands beyond Web search and seeks a foothold in the automotive market, the company's eagerness has begun to reek of arrogance to some in Detroit, who see danger as well as promise in Silicon Valley.
Danger to their present business models, you mean.
Personally, I think that Tesla would be an excellent company to talk with. Elon Musk speaks their language.
I don't read AC A human right
This is the Detroit that didn't take Japanese brands seriously until it almost killed them.
The Detroit that needed 30+ years to bring a small, efficient, powerful engine to the US.because they knew best what American wanted (big V8s for drag racing).
The Detroit that hides the fact that Mitsubishi (Chrysler), Toyota (GM) and Mazda (Ford) built their small cars for 20-some years.
But Google is arrogant.
Right.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
I'm only familiar with the dramatized version that was shown in the movie. But Preston Tucker had put in a lot of innovative stuff into his Torpedo cars and the Big 3 in Detroit practically drove him out of business because it was cheaper than trying to catch up. So much that some of his innovations from 1948 took many years, even decades, to become common in cars.
I guess it could also be said they were speaking a different language back then.
I'm guessing Google and Detroit could have disagreed on anything from car features to the actual business model on how they would sell them or, possibly, how they would split the profits. Everyone got along in the first meeting when they didn't talk about that; but then they did and it wasn't pretty.
OR they did talk about it and everyone in the meeting agreed, but then someone else heard the news and asked "but what if ____?" and people on that side backed out.
OR... there can be so many different scenarios here. Google isn't one to be too public about its inner workings, and Detroit is no stranger to keeping secrets.
attempting to make quality products (too hard, expensive) that can be driven to making financial assets that can be sold (easy, cheap). They are now finance companies that happen to make cars. Anything that doesn't enhance their ability to sell packages of auto loans to investors is of little interest. What Google proposes adds cost to the cars without enhancing the ability to sell loans.
Whenever two established giants in different industries require collaboration to bring a new product to market, there is always going to be power struggles and dick-waving. In this case, it is exacerbated by Google's eagerness to go right into full-blown autonomous cars instead of the incremental approach that the car companies want. This make sense since all of the responsibility of any issues that arise in this technology will be placed squarely on the shoulders of the auto makers. In any event, I think Tesla would make a better partner since they're a bolder company who isn't afraid to jump in with both feet.
...there will be no automated car. The legal system is so screwed up right now no company, even one 100 times Google's size, could hope to absorb the lawsuit costs.
Maybe Google should be working with a company like Tesla instead. It seems like Google would need to find a partner that a background in manufacturing cars, but was a little more innovative and forward-thinking than the big guys in Detroit have historically been.
Along with everything else, my guess is that if this technology really becomes commonplace, it will be disruptive and it will likely result in fewer people actually owning cars. In cases like this, sometimes getting businesses with entrenched interests onboard is not only difficult, but counter productive.
Why don't Google and Tesla cooperate? Both are very innovative companies that have, more or less, similar attitudes, I think.
Also, wouldn't an all electric car fit the futuristic idea of a self-driving vehicle much better than a gas guzzler?
Even assuming that tooling up mass production Just Isn't Doable, because reasons, this seems like Google's game to lose: Google is better at writing software than the automakers are, and all they need is one automaker to crack, admit that their software blows, and start OEMing for Google. The first hit might even be free...
Unless they really manage to alienate people, or stagnate to the point where the incrementalists overtake them, game over, man.
Problem solved. The others would be scrambling to catch up after that.
The auto industry (the US in particular) priority is not to have a Recall. They are all about playing it safe. That's why Japan got the first practical hybrid.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
attempting to make quality products (too hard, expensive) that can be driven to making financial assets that can be sold (easy, cheap).
You think so? GM's finance division had net income of $566 million on revenue of $3.34 billion in 2013. GM had net income of $6.9 billion on revenue of $155 billion. And you think they are a finance company? Their finance division accounts for 2% of their revenue and 8% of their profit. So no, GM is not a company focused on selling financial products.
How about Ford? Ford Financial had a net LOSS of $1.2 billion on revenues of $7.8 billion in 2012 versus the parent company making a profit of $6.25 billion on revenues of $133 billion over the same period. That means financial products are 5% of their revenue and actually were a drag on profits. So no, Ford isn't a financial company either.
I don't know where you got the idea that these companies are primarily finance companies but you could not be more wrong. Financing is a nice piece of the picture but it's manufacturing and car sales that makes or breaks them. Financing at best just pads the bottom line a bit.
What Google proposes adds cost to the cars without enhancing the ability to sell loans.
What Google is working on is nowhere close to being ready to put in production automobiles. It is a research project and will remain so for some time to come. Just because Google has developed some impressive prototypes doesn't mean it is even close to being something that Ford or GM could put in a car that gets sold to you or me. If Google wants to get into the automobile business they are welcome to try but I think if they do the phrase "shareholder lawsuit" will not be far behind. Just because Google has a bunch of smart people working for them doesn't mean they understand the business of selling cars.
Exactly as much as Henry Ford needed horse-buggy makers, and no more.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
1. Patents on tech that will have consumer demand, which Google can profit from licensing to automotive manufacturers.
2. How will the consumer use new-found free time while captive in a self-driving car? Google's internet services and mobile devices!
3. The navigation needs of a self-driving car will dovetail nicely with the robotics businesses that Google has acquired. Eventually autonomous robots may free up more of your time to enjoy Google and their advertisers' products.
Why doesn't Google skip the obsolete car and support skyTran?
http://www.skytran.us/intro/
Self driving cars are pointless. They do NOT solve the traffic problem. They do NOT solve the crappy road problem. Hauling a ton of steel & plastic along with a few hundred pounds of flesh from point A to point B is NOT very efficient.
Now, imagine if Google helped build a skyTran network in any major city. A new fiber/power/gas/wifi network could be easily added to the build-out to break the last mile strangle hold.
If you go back and listen to executives from the music or film industries talk about when they started to get approached by folks from Apple, Amazon, or others from the digital era, you'll hear similar stories. There was a lot of distrust between the sides, and what was needed was someone who could bridge the gap, speak both their languages, and help each side appreciate the problems of the other. People in many other industries think that technology is magical and that anything is possible, so they won't accept excuses or explanations to the contrary. People in Silicon Valley have a tendency to think that everything else is trivial, and fail to recognize the value in doing things in a different way...kinda like physicists.
This isn't about arrogance or bad attitudes. This is simply about two companies from different worlds, trying to get on the same page, and it's no surprise that they'd have these sorts of difficulties. They'll eventually start talking to each other, it's just a matter of when and under what conditions.
Google made a radical change in that it never consulted any automaker during its initial trials with Lexus, Toyoya and Audi vehicles but simply chose to retrofit and augment the existing vehicles with their own technology. It also never sourced an american vehicle in its tests, which may be why among other reasons like competing technologies american automakers didnt take kindly to the event.
to make this a production system, something people can buy in meatspace, google needs a manufacturing partner with automotive chops and recognition from the federal government. safety systems, traction and handling, transmission and engine control systems are all critical components of the vehicle that would take google another 10-12 years to design if they went and did it on their own (just ask tesla.) the ability to strap light radar,software and a 64 laser vision system to the top of a golf cart or existing car is all they have.
Test tracks are one thing, but US and foreign auto makers pace their vehicles through some of the most rigorous and grueling testing imaginable. Lexus uses a multi-million dollar driver simulator to engineer vehicles around a person, and GM owns what amounts to an entire test city for their vehicles. for google thats an incredible asset to be granted access to. Having a team of automotive engineers with a century of experience among them to stand by and say, "that might work in a city, but on a rural route you'll kill your passengers" is what i suspect google really wants. Access to proprietary crash data and performance analytics would let google use any auto manufacturer who consented to the partnership as a step ladder to skip all the monstrously difficult work of designing and manufacturing a car, and what i believe most auto manufacturers are concerned about is seeing the lions share of their efforts go unrewarded, not to mention the decades of autonomics work they themselves pioneered being purloined by a tech giant.
Good people go to bed earlier.
they should team up with telsa because it's the only American's car maker that will be able to understand where the car industry have to go in a near future.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Problem solved. The others would be scrambling to catch up after that.
Google is an advertising company that is good at writing software. They have NO special expertise in running a manufacturing company, particularly one the size and complexity of GM or Ford. Furthermore the profit margins on car sales are much lower than Google's core advertising business. Not to mention the company cultures are NOTHING alike. I honestly can't think of anything dumber Google could do with their cash. The level of management distraction alone that this would cause is more than you can possibly imagine.
Manufacturing is NOTHING like writing software. I've done both and I run a manufacturing business as my day job. As smart as the folks at Google are they are not set up to be a manufacturer. It's not in their company DNA and it would kill them if they tried.
When an android phone crashes its no big deal.
When a car crashes people die. You can't just rush a system to market and call it "beta".
I can understand Detroit's reluctance to be the ones stuck holding the bag when these android cars start going all SKYNET and running people down.
I have to return some videotapes...
"I would imagine that this is probably different than just making more time for people to click on web sites," --director of Google's self-driving car group quoted in article.
I'm sure he just meant that Google's standard business model won't apply--they will need to actually have people pay to either own or license the technology, rather than freeing time for them to use Google's traditional revenue sources. I imagine the interviewer had to ask a pretty silly question...
Freeing up time is enough to sell billions of dollars worth of these cars--more, to make people spend billions of dollars *more* on cars than they otherwise would--in New York and Los Angeles alone.
Also, the automakers are used to living in a litigation-averse culture; self-driving cars are going to make it a *lot* easier to determine who is at fault in court cases.
Audio jacks, such as the original 14 in (6.35 mm) version date from as far back as 1878, when it was used for manual telephone exchanges. But I never saw audio jacks included as a standard item with any car stereo until just a few years ago, long after USB ports where being installed on just about every appliance imagined. Fry's still sells devices that make it possible to connect an MP3 player to their car stereo system via an adapter that takes the form of a cassette tape.
I don't follow automotive trends closely as it is such a slow changing and dull industry when you factor out the fashionable aesthetic designs that change from year to year. But to my knowledge cars still don't come with USB ports. How can we get such a slow moving industry to get on board with some seriously disruptive technology, such as autonomous operation?
Whats happened between 2012 and now, has progress been made since?
Traditional car makers (e.g. Detroit 3) are not always wrong and in this case Google should not be simply assumed to be correct. Since I was not part of these meetings, I can only form my opinions based on what was reported. Still, there are some things that concern me with Google/Tesla approach to autos:
* Unwillingness to finalize the product is part of Silicon culture. When I buy a car, I expect final product with very rare instance of patching (e.g. recalls) and no instances of altered or added functionality. The fact that when you buy Tesla you are subjected to "patch Tuesday" tinkering greatly worries me.
* No defined model years. With traditional cars you usually know that parts from years X-Y models A-Z are interchangeable. Not so much with Tesla - where mid-model changes are commonplace. What going to happen when 10+ year old Tesla needs a new part? Always buy new, because no two of them are ever the same?
* Used car market. For electric cars it doesn't exists. This means that depreciation on these is largely unknown.
All one has to do is watch the GM CEO testifying in the Congressional hearings, and read the reports about GM's safety failures, to see the arrogance is not with google, but with Detroit. The folks in Michigan are afraid of google in the same manner that auto dealerships are afraid of Tesla's direct sales. The current, cozy, entrenched business interests are going to be upset for the benefit of the consumer.
The majority of car accidents are caused by human error.
True.
Specifically the error of thinking "I am not drunk."
Demonstrably false. The majority of auto accidents in no way involve alcohol. That's not to say the number of alcohol related incidents is insignificant but it clearly is not the majority.
First there will be test runs. When the test runs do not have car accidents, taxi companies will start using them.
That is a HUGE assumption. One that is entirely unsubstantiated at this time. You are presuming that automated vehicles can be programmed to navigate real world conditions with zero errors or unexpected conditions or human interference. In the real world accidents will happen simply because there will be times and conditions that the vehicles cannot accommodate for.
Then suddenly, car insurance rates will drop to almost nothing - if the car is computer controlled.
Ha! Let me guess, you aren't an actuary are you? There is more to auto insurance than collision insurance. Even if you are correct and accidents by some miracle dropped to a good approximation of zero, you still have theft, liability, incidental damage, etc. I'm optimistic that computer aided/controlled driving can reduce accidents but enough to cause car insurance rates to drop to "nothing"? Not in my lifetime I think and going by the averages I have a good 40 years or so left.
The whole process should take less than ten years from the introduction of the first commercially available 'no need to have a driver's license car', till the majority of new cars sold being computer controlled.
And which orifice did you pull that "ten years" number from? That's a pretty bold claim and I'm pretty sure you can't back it up. First off the average time people in the US own a car is now almost 11 years. That's the AVERAGE meaning roughly half keep their cars longer than that. An expensive and unproven new driving technology isn't going to cause a precipitous decline in time of ownership on the second most expensive asset most people own, no matter how much it drops insurance rates.
Why don't Google and Tesla cooperate? Both are very innovative companies that have, more or less, similar attitudes, I think.
Also, wouldn't an all electric car fit the futuristic idea of a self-driving vehicle much better than a gas guzzler?
You buy the car from Tesla on the internet and it delivers itself to your home?
This is not a surprise. Detroit makes it's money from marketing cars that are: a)"fun to drive" b)"tough" c)"stylish" d)"pretentious or class-conscious" e)some combination of the above. Safety, functionality, and reliability are boring (didn't Lee Iacocca once say, "safety doesn't sell"?).
This is unfortunate, because I think Detroit is missing out on a great opportunity. Somebody, somewhere is going to start making autonomous cars, and people will start buying them. Detroit will find itself playing catch-up, or get relegated to irrelevancy.
Personally, I think if autonomous cars can be proven to be safe and reliable, there will be a virtual tsunami of adoption by the buying public.
Proverbs 21:19
Hate to say it, but the autonomous vehicle folks should seriously confer with the legal profession to ensure that the devices that they make / retrofit will be not fully depleted by the gamers that love to make money off folks with deep pocketses. The number of DWI's will decrease, and the number of sleepy driver issues should fall.There will be some considerations, as the responsible party shifts from John Doe to the Corporate Programmer.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
Just because Tesla has a bunch of smart people working for them doesn't mean they understand the business of selling cars.
Tesla has a bunch of automobile and manufacturing experts working for them. They didn't just tell a bunch of programmers that tomorrow they were going to start designing axles. Tesla was a new company started from the ground up to be a car company. Google is nothing of the sort and would be foolish to try.
hmmmmm.......perhaps you may want to rethink that last part?
Nope. Tesla and Google are very different companies. The fact that they both have their roots in Silicon Valley is about as close as they get. Cars and advertising/software are two businesses that could not be more different. Furthermore, Tesla is still a very small company in the automotive world. They are doing some of the most interesting stuff in cars but their long term survival is hardly a foregone conclusion.
You're full of it Look at the current lineup of vehicles and compare them to similar cars or trucks 20 years ago. Engines, suspensions, electronics and safety have made considerable improvements. It's just that they tend to be incremental, evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
I guess Detroit would clearly know what arrogance smells like, that's true.
-Styopa
Maybe that's why they're shopping around for a manufacturer that already exists.
The number 1 reason that American Car companies decided to focus on larger vehicles and trucks is because the US government gave trade protections for those higher margin vehicles. So, when your freshly minted business school types looked at which cars to invest money in R&D and development... you guessed it... they saw a bunch of cheap imports on the low end without any tarrif protections and low margins and then they looked at trucks and SUVs where they could make higher margins and had a built in competitive edge thanks to Uncle Sam. So, they were hurt by the insideous anti-competitive effects of the very protections they had lobbied for. As trade barriers eased on trucks and larger vehicles, the American companies had already long ago ceded the small car market without apparently realizing that they were putting themselves years behind and two decades worth of entry level customers had chosen the cheaper better made imports. When those customers got older and were looking for those higher end cars now or needed a truck, then they started going for with the same companies that had made their small reliable entry level cars like the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla.
I exaggerated when I referenced alcohol. But is is one of the major causes of accidents.
Yes it is. Roughly 1/3 according to the CDC.
Yes, the first runs will have issues. But google has already proven the concept works.
A research project is a LONG way from a working production vehicle. It's not even clear if the technology Google is using is technologically or economically viable on a production basis. I have over 15 years in the auto industry as an engineer and an accountant. It takes a long time for technology like that to get into production vehicles. Longer when you are talking about something that takes over the actual driving of the vehicle. This isn't like some fancy new GPS. Get automated driving wrong and people die. So it is going to take a long time - much longer than 10 years in all likelihood. I honestly think even 20 years is wildly optimistic baring some sort of unbelievable technology breakthrough.
I am not an actuary, but I was talking about car accident insurance, not theft, etc.
Fair enough. You still have NO evidence regarding what accident rates might be because nobody knows. Might be close to zero as you are suggesting or it might be higher than it is now. Nobody knows and anyone who claims they do is simply making stuff up. The only thing I'm sure of is that the accident rate will be higher than zero.
As for ten years, I looked at the introduction of cellphones.
Cellphones are not automobiles. The economics and design cycles of the two products are completely different. It's a specious comparison.
Please note I was talking about the majority of new cars being sold So the lifespan of the old cars is irrelevant.
The average time people own new cars right now is just shy of 6 years. This means that even if the technology didn't add a penny to the cost of the vehicle (which will not be true), and if everyone who bought a new car had this technology on it (which they will not), and every car suddenly had the technology available in the same year (which will not happen) you might get past half the first owner cars on the road to be automated within 7-8 years in an absolute miracle case. In the real world you're probably looking at a 20 year introduction if not longer. Even if the technology works great right out of the gate and there are no incidents that scare people off of it (both unlikely), its not going to be available on more than a few cars at first for simple economic reasons.
Car redesign cycles are about 4-6 years typically, sometimes longer but seldom much shorter. This means that it will take around 6 years before most new vehicles even have access to the technology at absolute minimum. Even if Google were to announce tomorrow that they had a working consumer ready technology, it would be years before car companies could put it on most vehicles. (fyi that is exactly why the electronics in vehicles tends to be years behind the state of the art) Some cars aren't going to take it on the first cycle so it will be at least 2-3 design cycles before most cars have the technology even in the best case. That's 12-18 years after product introduction even presuming it works well and is affordable which is an ENORMOUS assumption. I'm not sure you really appreciate how unlikely the timeline you are suggesting is given the economic realities of the auto industry.
I do actually appreciate your optimism on the technology and I probably hope it comes to pass as much as you seem to but I've worked a long time in auto manufacturing. It's going to take a long time for this to happen. Much longer than 10 years unfortunately. You'll see spinoff technologies like adaptive cruise control, heads up displays and other cool stuff sooner but full computer control of vehicles is a long way off as a mass market product.
Planned obsolescence and a huge vested interest in current technology.
By keeping change gradual, Detroit can make consumers pay for every step along the way by selling them model after model that's just different enough to generate sales and yet not different enough to require big investments in new technology (manufacturing or otherwise). In doing so they make sure they can write off any investments in existing technology after they have been recouped. This is known as planned obsolescence.
With revolutionary changes however, Detroit's car makers will have no chance to slip a line of intermediate models and, say, a 10 year transition period, between the current model and the future one. So they leave money on the table. Big money.
And of course they won't do that if they have anything to say in it.
Google on the other hand has no vested interest in existing car technology and is only looking to monetise their current, developing, tech. Of course they want to see it implemented asap, with as little intermediate models as possible.
Given those two positions, can anyone be surprised they didn't hit it off?
Android phones aren't designed to be fail-safe, any company with any sense (and desire to avoid lawsuits) will engineer multiple fail-safes into a autonomous car. There will of course still be malfunctions, but nowhere near the failure rate of a phone and probably even nowhere the failure rate of human drivers (falling asleep, drunk driving, distracted driving). You can be pretty certain that for at least the first decade owners will be told to keep track of the cars driving and there may even be a big "STOP" button in the center console.
So they had a bad meeting. It happens. It's even worse across language barriers. Most successful business teams get over that.
Google gets that automatic driving can kill people. The guys from social pushing "Cruise" put shiny plastic on lane keeping and adaptive cruise control and call it automatic driiving. They're right in the middle of the "deadly valley" - it's good enough you can take your hands off the wheel, but not good enough you can trust it. Those guys are going to be a problem.
GM is in serious legal and PR trouble right now because they have an ignition switch problem which causes cars to stop if people have a keychain with too much stuff on it. 13 GM people have already been fired. Google has never faced having to take responsibility like that.
The software industry is used to being able to dump its product liability on the customer. This will not work in the "Internet of Things".
"still sells devices that make it possible to connect an MP3 player to their car stereo system via an adapter that takes the form of a cassette tape"
Hey! I still use one of those to play songs from my little $7 MP3 player in my car. I think the adapter cost more than the MP3 player.
That's all us humans need in our way is a bunch of self driving cars texting and video taping everything as they run around on tax paid for streets and highways for no good reason using precious resources, driving up the price of fuel and automobiles and insurance rates.
On a brighter note, it took the auto makers about 60 years to implement seatbelts. It took them another 20 years to implement air bag safety. Google wants to put automobiles on public highways without drivers in them in about 5 years, guessing?
Come on.
The motor industry just can not mentally change quickly enough. That is why they fear Tesla and people like Google. Just about every inch of every car made needs to be replaced with more modern ideas and materials. Detroit is stuck making metal frames and body panels that have no real reason to exist these days. And with gasoline as expensive as it is we can say that gasoline and diesel also need to be cast out. The Detroit mindset is to put a new look on a vehicle and really change little at all. They haven't even put a decent ignition lock on a car in all of automotive history. Detroit has earned its demise by clinging to past designs and ideas that never were practical to begin with. People are so fed up that bicycles and scooters are taking over in many cities.
Seriously, they would do well to work with start-ups that are ran by ppl that want to make a change.
Detroit does NOT want to make a change. They simply want to dominate in the USA.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
while automakers make test cities out of wood and concrete, google procedurally generates them and integrates it into its mapping software. ;) he he he
my guess is that well have robot drivers before we have automated vehicles.
at least the robots can then at least help you bring your groceries back to the car among other things
not only that but robot drivers would grab a much wider market not only as personal assitants and treat your wounds, security detail, old age help,
retail and fast food... deleveries from the drone docking stations around town, grow crops, drive trucks, fight wars.. are you kidding me?
the auto industry will just come up with interfaces to let the robot have more control.
there will be no auto driven cars.
Don't want 'em, don't need 'em. Screen people for driving skills more stringently, keep the losers off the roads and in buses, taxis, trains, or whatever instead if they need to get somewhere.
the only thing robots will not be able to do is code.
essentially robots are code. and code cant create code.
yeah there are code generators but humans still need to operate them to get a finished product out the door.
in the future you will have everything automated for you and have every amenity including basic health care to keep you looking 30 until you are 300.
Humans will just sit around until the system breaks and chaos ensues.
Otherwise things will be great on wednesday of your 4 hour work week doing your volunteer part to keep the system going.
Be content with the apartment you can morph into different looks until you get bored... going anywhere outside of your zone will be really easy but cost you a pretty penny.
the new tech elite will live on the moon and mars and smoke the best dope.
while the uneducated non coders former service workers will be sitting at thier stoops staring into the sky pissed off they dont get to go to mars.
Do you post on Slashdot just to brag about the amount of money you have? I don't have the time to look up all of your posts but it seems like every week you're dropping the name of some big dollar car. According to you, it sounds like you own about 20 different cars. I'm not impressed.
If you're gonna say nigger, then don't bother bleeping out the asshole. Nigger.
Google cars = tin boxes for people who treat a vehicle as merely a utility. They don't want to deal with anything about a car, but they need transportation. They don't care how fast the car goes, what color it is, or how quiet it is inside (well maybe a little). Google and its special people fit this mold very well. Why would any automaker want to help this concept along? There is no growth opportunity in self-driving cars for automakers.
Google's business model is trading privacy (information) for convenience. They have plenty of money, let them just buy an automaker. Any one of their choosing. Let them figure it out on their own.
I don't think it's hard to decide who to bet on here. The US industry that almost entirely went backrupt (except for Ford), or Google, which already has a better autonomous car than any of those bozos.
If those guys had any brains, they'd saddle up with Google as fast as they could.