Google’s self-driving vehicle division set to become company

Google will soon split off it’s current division that focuses on developing self-driving vehicles. The division is now ready for this move, which will allow the company to fully participate in the race for bringing autonomous driving technology to the market. The split was announced by CEO John Krafcik during the Nikkei Innovation Forum in Palo Alto, California.

At the moment, the self-driving car project is still part of Google’s innovation campus called X. It will be split from X to become a standalone company, though Krafcik has not yet announced when, where an how this will take place. He did however state that the division is far enough through it’s ‘graduation’ to make this next step feasible.

It’s not the first move Google has made in the last year when it comes to the development of self-driving vehicles. Krafcik himself, a veteran of the US auto industry, was appointed as CEO for this project a little over a year ago. Last May, Google and Fiat Chrysler started working together on the development of 100 test vehicles. The testing of this prototype has already commenced.

Advanced state

Google is. of course, not the only company trying to bring self-driving cars to the consumer market. Many other technology companies and car makers aim to do this. Krafcik indicated that Google’s technology is at quite an advanced state and that it is now in the finetuning phase. When the division will be split is not yet clear, but it is certain that as a stand alone company, it will remain under Google’s holding Alphabet.