Google-designed minivan could steer industry
THERE are shiny new SUVs, brawny pickups and sleek sedans. But the unlikely star of the annual Detroit auto show is an odd-looking minivan capable of driving itself.
The van, designed by Google, grabbed the spotlight on Sunday, the first day of press previews. Its introduction highlighted the industry’s fascination with autonomous driving vehicles, as well as the rising sway of the tech industry in the industry.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, spun off its driverless car project last month. The new business, called Waymo, is considered a sign that the company is ready to commercialise a decade of research and development of a vehicle operated solely by computer. The vehicle looks like a conventional minivan. But it is also equipped with the self-driving sensors and vision systems.
That combination is telling. The van was built by the Detroit automaker Fiat Chrysler, making it the first heavyweight collaboration between a major automaker and one of Silicon Valley’s elite. And it shows how Waymo, widely considered the leader in autonomous driving technology, hopes to sell its self-driving systems to car companies unwilling to bear all the costs of developing vehicles.
General Motors and Ford Motor recently announced plans to build their first fully autonomous vehicles. But Google is intent on offering another option to automakers by creating a ready-made package of self-driving equipment that can be integrated into the vehicles
But Google is intent on offering another option to automakers by creating a ready-made package of selfdriving equipment that can be integrated into mainstream vehicles.
The chief executive of Waymo, John Krafcik, said on Sunday that the company had sharply reduced the cost of producing the radars and other hightech parts needed to achieve autonomous driving.
“It’s all designed and built from the ground up by Waymo,” Krafcik said, “with every part manufactured with one goal in mind: to safely handle the complex task of full autonomy.”
By doing so, Waymo is positioning itself as a mega-supplier to the industry, and a turnkey solution to transforming conventional cars into driverless models.
In the past, industry analysts were doubtful that automakers would work closely with tech companies.
“The auto industry has to date expressed a collective wariness to allow players like Alphabet too close to the data generated by today’s car platform,” Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst, said in a recent report.
The collaboration between Waymo and Fiat Chrysler has whetted the interest of other automakers. Last month, Honda said it was in talks with Waymo “to integrate its self-driving technology into Honda vehicles”.
Others, however, are choosing to keep their self-driving research pri- vate. GM, for example, has acquired outside tech companies to bolster its own engineering teams, and it recently announced plans to manufacture self-driving versions of its new all-electric Chevrolet Bolt at a plant in suburban Detroit.
Ford Motor is also pressing ahead with efforts to introduce a new fully autonomous vehicle by 2021.
Fiat-Chrysler’s result on display at the North American International Auto Show was a minivan adorned with swooping plastic scoops that contained sophisticated sensors and radars installed by Waymo.
The van does have a steering wheel, primarily because some states, such as California, require one during test- ing on public roads and highways.
But Krafcik said the vehicle was “capable of getting you door to door without a person at the wheel” and represented improvements in the costs associated with self-driving systems.
He said that when Google began working on autonomous vehicles in 2009, a sophisticated sensor system using lasers could cost as much as $75,000 from an outside supplier. By manufacturing the components internally, the company has cut the cost by 90 percent.
“This is a big step in making this technology affordable and more accessible to millions of people,” Krafcik said.
For its part, Fiat Chrysler modified the electrical systems and other components of 100 minivans built at a Canadian assembly plant and then delivered the vehicles to Waymo to add its proprietary self-driving equipment.
The vehicles have already undergone testing at the automaker’s track in Michigan, and Waymo plans to start driving them on public roads in Arizona and California this month.
Krafcik did not provide a forecast for when Waymo’s self-driving technology would be available for sale directly to automakers or ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. Instead, he said, the company is “mastering the hardware and software to build a better driver for a truly selfdriving car”.
While it is not showing off new models in Detroit, Fiat Chrysler did announce that it will boost its US employment by 2,000 jobs when it adds new Jeep SUVs to factories in Ohio and Michigan.
Despite its long history of staging elaborate news conferences at the Detroit show, Fiat Chrysler was noticeably absent from Sunday’s event. But it did announce on Sunday that it would boost its employment in the United States by 2,000 jobs when it adds new Jeep SUVs to factories in Ohio and Michigan.
In another sign of the industry’s rapidly changing landscape, the carmaker instead chose last week’s consumer electronics show in Las Vegas to introduce an electric concept vehicle targeted at young buyers.