Alphabet Creating Stand-Alone Self-Driving Car Business
October 26 2016 - 9:50PM
Dow Jones News
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.—Google parent Alphabet Inc. is graduating
its self-driving-car project from its research lab X into a
stand-alone business, said X chief Astro Teller, a major step in
the vehicles' path to commercial operations.
The car group's finances were separated from X on Jan. 1 this
year, and now the team is completing a series of corporate and
legal moves to become its own business, Mr. Teller said in an
interview at the WSJDLive 2016 tech conference.
As its own stand-alone business under Alphabet, the car group
would likely be expected to soon begin generating revenue, though
not necessarily a profit at first. Mr. Teller declined to disclose
the car project's planned business model.
"The world is going to have cars that are sold to individuals
and cars that are shared by individuals, and which one Alphabet
does, we have our thinking on it," he said. "But right now we're
very focused on safety."
Mr. Teller said Alphabet will likely roll out its self-driving
cars incrementally over the next several years as they improve with
more time on the road. For example, the group could choose to
launch the cars commercially in just a handful of cities with
favorable roads and weather, before expanding to more challenging
roadways and climates, he said.
He compared the process to teaching a teenager to drive, from
parents first keeping their hands close to the wheel to letting the
teenager drive alone only during daylight to eventually eliminating
restrictions altogether.
"Any other company that's acting rationally will probably do the
same thing, which is finding constrained ways to roll out so that
we're learning safely," he said.
Other companies building self-driving cars are deploying their
technology gradually, though in many of those cases the auto firms
are releasing semiautonomous technology that still requires drivers
to be ready to take control.
Mr. Teller said Alphabet's cars will be fully autonomous from
the start. "You press a button and tell the car where you want to
go," he said.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 26, 2016 21:35 ET (01:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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