The head of Google’s self-driving car project said the company would “need a lot of help” to bring a vehicle to market, in the latest sign it is engaged in a vigorous search for a traditional carmaker partner.
Peter Krafcik made the statement in a presentation at the annual Automotive News conference in Detroit, the heart of the traditional US motor industry, whose business some analysts have predicted the company could overturn.
“The message is that we understand … we are going to need a lot of help in the next stage of our project,” Mr Krafcik said. “We’re going to be partnering more and more and more — you can count on it, though I don’t have anything certain to say today.”
Mr Krafcik’s comments follow a report late last year — which turned out to be unfounded — that Google was about to sign an agreement with Ford on developing self-driving vehicles. Mr Krafcik gave a non-committal answer when asked whether he had recently been in meetings in Detroit’s Renaissance Center, General Motors’ headquarters.