Report: Google Partners With Ford To Make Self-Driving Cars (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A new report from Yahoo Autos says Google and Ford plan to announce a partnership to build self-driving cars. "By pairing with Google, Ford gets a massive boost in self-driving software development; while the automaker has been experimenting with its own systems for years, it only revealed plans this month to begin testing on public streets in California. Google has 53 test vehicles on the road in California and Texas, with 1.3 million miles logged in autonomous driving. 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." Automotive News reported on the same plans independently, saying, "It isn't clear whether Ford would design a purpose-built vehicle for Google or supply a standard production car fitted with the sensors and computers that the car needs to guide itself down the road."

Comments

What Google gets

[Anonymous Coward]

- Political clout. Ford has plants in many states, and a network of dealerships in every state. And many loyal truck and car owners who vote.

Anything else? Well I did mention the network of dealerships, right.

Three observations

[Lucas123]

1. There was no way Google was ramping up a manufacturing line. That would have been too risky and costly. It's always been about selling the software IP, just like Microsoft knew the money was in software licensing not the commodity hardware. Vehicles will be defined by software in the future. Expect Apple to jump into this game as well.

2. The pod car (sans steering wheel) Google has been testing would never have been marketed to consumers; it was a service vehicle for the taxi and delivery industries.

3. Autonomous vehicles will mostly be electric and aimed at urban areas where short travel distances don't require exceptionally high-capacity batteries and high-concentrations of pollution can best be targeted for reduction.

Google Pinto

[darkain]

Just what we need, the Google Pinto!

Already being done

[sjbe]

I still don't understand, why we don't have self-driving trains already

We already do. You could have found that out in under 20 seconds on google. It's being implemented on normal railways too.

the task is so much simpler with one-dimensional roads, no size/weight restrictions on the necessary equipment, and full control of the signs and signals

I think you may be underestimating the complexity of train operations. Nevertheless the cost of a person to operate the train is much smaller in comparison to a car. Trains already do have a lot of automation and are getting more all the time but the financial potential of automation isn't nearly as large as with automobiles.

Re:Already being done

[Kjella]

There's a few practical considerations:
1) They're operated by professionals. I have a relative that is a long haul driver here in Norway, here's some of the differences:
a) Far more rigorous training to drive a truck than my car
b) Health cerificate (otherwise only drivers above 70)
c) More frequent renewal
d) Rest periods verified by electronic meter
e) Can not drink alcohol up to 24 hours before driving
f) Maximum speed is capped to 90-100 km/h depening on class
g) Far more frequent road checks of papers, technical condition and securing of cargo

2) Pilots, bus drivers, train drivers and so on have a responsibility for a lot of lives. Most of them take it very seriously and act professionally.

3) We only need a small fraction of the population to be professional drivers, if it's not right for you there's plenty of other occupations.

Regular cars on the other hand is operated by almost everyone, which tells you the requirements aren't all too high. And we have a lot of people who might be qualified drivers if they were sober, rested and paying attention but just drive when they shouldn't. Or our health is failing and the car is our lifeline to getting around, so we refuse to give it up. And ultimately we as a society depend on cars, so we don't really want to put the thumbscrews on the requirements or punishments. So the potential for improvement is far greater.

Re:FORD?

[sunderland56]

Presumably the self-driving car will have a built-in computer and cellular data connectivity, so that it can call it's own tow truck.

Re:Why not self-driving trains first?

[PopeRatzo]

I still don't understand, why we don't have self-driving trains already

We do. The elevated trains in Chicago went from four employees to three to two down to one, who is basically just there for emergencies.

They won't do unmanned self-driving trains because people would freak out if they didn't think there was at least one human manning the train. Not everyone is enlightened as we few, we happy delusional few, we band of nerds who actually believe we're all going to be riding in self-driving cars in our lifetime.

It's the same with airplanes. There's no need for pilots and co-pilots on commercial passenger airlines any more. But take the pilot out of the cockpit and a lot of people ain't gonna fly anywhere.

Re:Why not self-driving trains first?

[PopeRatzo]

Yes, of course, every tiny bit of employee protection comes from unions, not from silly things nobody does, like negotiations.

Did you have to negotiate for sick days on your job? No? Do you know why? Because a standard was set - by unions.

Re:FORD?

[tehlinux]

Backwards, it's Driver Returned On Foot

Re:FORD?

[OakDragon]

If it's Ford, I hope they're self-repairing as well.