Lo and Behold! It’s Happening

December 29, 2015

The Greatest Car-Tech Collaboration is On the Cards

Ford is teaming up with Google on the latest autonomous new technology. Rumours suggest that Google is in talks with Ford to have a go at driverless cars. For a long time Google has been working on its own autonomous driving project, but with the help of Ford the project will definitely speed up. A formal announcement will be made at the 2016 CES in Las Vegas in January.

What’s In It for Google?

The new partnership would be mutually beneficial for both companies as Google will have the backup of a global car company while Ford would be able to access to the data Google has collected over 1.3 million miles of driverless driving trials. Google’s self-driving prototypes have been in development for the last five years, but it has one disadvantage as the cars have not been up to the mark. Yes, Google’s strong point is software, but they simply can’t make cars. The partnership with Ford will allow Google to produce real cars with driverless capabilities from the beginning.

What’s In It for Ford?

Ford will get all the software expertise it needs to develop its own self-driving car as it has been very slow in the making. The reason being that Ford was focusing on driver-assist technologies like lane-keeping and parking assist. Raj Nair, vice president of Global Product Development at Ford said: 'It's a really big step from these driver assist technologies to fully autonomous vehicles.' The new partnership will definitely help in the development of such tech.

Partnerships between Ford & Google

These companies share previous history as Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally joined Google's board last year, while another high ranking Ford executive, John Krafcik now heads up Google's self-driving division. We're likely to have confirmation at the CES show in January.

Written by Jennifer James | Dedicated ET Automotive Writer & Mechanic