Beginning in 2016, driverless cars will become a standalone division within Google, sources tell Bloomberg, and with more than one million miles logged on highways in Austin, San Francisco, and other cities, the technology seems more than ready to take on a new challenge. The prospective fleet will likely be comprised of a combination of large and small cars, much like other ride-for-hire and taxi services. And while this may be alarming news for other companies in the space, experts like Thilo Koslowski, vice president and automotive practice leader at Gartner Inc, believe this could be great news all around.
“These potential ride-for-hire services could allow consumers to experience the technology and embrace it in a bigger way,” he said. “That would help not just Google but the entire industry.” Uber is already toying with autonomous technology of its own, and with other countries looking to expand their self-driving vehicle capabilities (China is looking to put self-driving buses on the roads within five years), some healthy competition seems like an ideal catalyst for further innovation.
Of course, taxi services aside, it looks like self-driving technology is becoming more and more of a mainstay within the automotive industry as a whole. Ford recently announced that it would begin testing self-driving Fusion hybrid sedans, and both Tesla and General Motors are implementing technology that will allow the driver to sit back and relax on “well-tended highways.”
The future may soon be upon us, and it looks a whole lot like auto-pilot.
