General Motors carmaker is interested in partnering up with Google to design the new era of autonomous car technology, according a recent statement by GM’s Chief Technical Officer Jon Lauckner at the Detroit Auto Show.
Even if Lauckner did not clearly stated that GM is pondering an independent drive collaboration with Google, he said that he strongly believes that GM is “absolutely open to talk about” new-gen autonomous driving engineering with Google.
GM is already working at a self-driving innovation. Despite the fact that it is not aggressively searching for a tech accomplice, it is exceedingly likely that the carmaker will be ready to work with Google to roll out autonomous vehicles to consumers market. Google, an organization popular for online browsing, the Android operating system, Maps and Chrome, isn’t looking to become an automaker. For that reason, the company needs a partner to venture with and get independent autos on the market. Google also said in a release a couple of weeks ago that it was searching for collaborators in the auto industry. The tech company strives to bring autonomous vehicles to the roads. As such, GM’s alleged enthusiasm for working with Google is probably based on the fact that Google has charted a great many miles of road time on its autonomous car since 2010, when it initially uncovered that it was taking a shot at self-driving innovations.
GM representative Dan Flores also made some recent statements regarding a hypothetical collaboration with Google. He mentioned that the two companies have also partnered on previous ventures. He also remarked that GM officials discussed with Google many topics and they are willing to have similar talks in the future. However, he stated that GM would negotiate with any tech company with potentially interesting innovations.
According to Flores, GM plans to retail self-driving cars in about `15 years but the auto revolution might happen as early as five years from now. GM is already only two years away from revealing the Cadillac CT6, an auto that will come with GM’s new Super Cruise engineering that introduces some partial self-driving features, added Flores.
Super Cruise is a driver-backed innovation that would let the driver remove his/her hands from the wheel and his/her foot from the gas with the auto keeping up its speed and direction. Incorporated with the 2017 Cadillac CT6, Super Cruise is not intended for anything besides expressway driving, Flores noted. The new model is scheduled for market launch in late 2016. GM has been developing self-driving engineering for around five years.
Image Source: Carnegie Mellon News