Detroit-based car maker Ford and Google are looking forward to planning a joint venture to build autonomous cars, says USA Today. If Google has all the technology required for this mission, Ford will help the search engine giant make them even faster.
The official announcement should be made at CES 2016
According to the car manufacturer’s CEO, Mark Fields, the official announcement regarding the two companies collaboration will be made next month, during the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), taking place in Las Vegas.
Even though Ford has already made some announcement about starting to test self-driving cars, nothing was confirmed until date. Spokesman Alan Hall claims that for the moment, they don’t want to comment on speculation.
“We have been and will continue working with many companies and discussing a variety of subjects related to our Ford Smart Mobility plan,” he said. “We keep these discussions private for obvious competitive reasons, and we do not comment on speculation.”
Back in 2014, Google also teamed up with Roush, in order to develop and build a self-driving pod. Also, in January, Google’s director of Self-Driving Cars, Chris Urmson, declared that they’re aiming to have driverless cars available on the market in the next five years, as hundreds of people are already working on the project in California and Detroit.
Other carmakers were contacting initially, due to their broad experience
Besides this, Google’s is making important progress in this direction, hiring former Hyundai and Ford executive as CEO of the Self-Driving Car Project. Finally, Alan Mullay, former Ford CEO is currently a part of Google’s board of directors.
Before agreeing for a deal with Ford, Google also discussed with other important automakers, like General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and Daimler, as they were interested in working with some of the most experienced companies on the market.
