Reuters article; “Google, Detroit diverge on road map for self-driving cars”
Not too much of a surprise for anybody who has worked in a regulated industry.
In 2012, a small team of Google Inc engineers and business staffers met with several of the world’s largest car makers, to discuss partnerships to build self-driving cars.
In one meeting, both sides were enthusiastic about the futuristic technology, yet it soon became clear that they would not be working together. The Internet search company and the automaker disagreed on almost every point, from car capabilities and time needed to get it to market to extent of collaboration.
I think that this part sums up the situation well;
“There was a certain amount of arrogance on the Google side, in the sense of ‘We know what we’re doing, you just help us,’” said a second person, representing a major car maker, who was involved in discussions with Google.
“We’d say, ‘Well you don’t really know that much. And we’re not going to put our name on a project like that because if something goes wrong, we have a lot more to lose.’”
I seriously doubt that Google has the patience and the willingness to work with others that is required to pull this off.
Naofumi Kagami 