Coverage: Google’s parent spins off self-driving car company

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced Tuesday that is was spinning off its self-driving car operation into a separate company called Waymo.

Daisuke Wakabayashi of The New York Times has the news:

Alphabet’s decision to spin out Waymo is a signal that the company thinks its self-driving technology has advanced beyond research project status and is ready for commercialization.

Autonomous vehicles are a hotly contested field of technology, pursued by other tech giants, promising upstarts and traditional automakers — all who see the potential of self-driving cars to upend the automobile industry.

Advancements in sensor technology coupled with breakthroughs in machine learning — the ability of computers to learn from vast amounts of data and improve over time — mean driverless cars (essentially supercomputers on wheels) could become a regular sight on the roads over the next few years.

“As we look at this space and the opportunities ahead of us, we see so much,” said John Krafcik, chief executive of Waymo. “We’re a new company, but we’ve been at this for a while.”

Waymo joins the roster of Alphabet companies, which includes Google. Mr. Krafcik said the new arrangement allows Waymo to tap into the infrastructure and resources of Alphabet with the feel of an independent venture-backed company. He said Waymo’s technology could have uses as varied as ride-sharing services and long-haul trucking, but he did not lay out a specific business strategy.

Alexandria Sage of Reuters reports that Waymo is vying to be the first to roll out a self-driving car:

Although no deals were announced, the move signals a desire to finally monetize the company’s valuable research amid fierce competition from a score of rivals all vying to be the first to launch production-ready self-driving cars.

Google’s high-profile program, now in its seventh year, has been at the forefront of self-driving technology, but is now challenged by companies from Uber Technologies Inc to Apple Inc and traditional car companies in the fast-growing industry.

“It’s an indication of the maturity of our technology,” John Krafcik, Waymo’s chief executive, told reporters at a press conference in San Francisco. “We can imagine our self-driving tech being used in all sorts of areas.”

The move shows “confidence that we are close to bringing this (technology) to a lot of people,” Krafcik said. “We’ve sort of reached an inflection point.”

That came in October 2015, when one of the company’s self-driving cars gave the first fully autonomous ride in Austin, Texas, to a blind man with no one else in the car. Normally during testing, an engineer sits in the passenger seat to monitor the technology.

Alex Davies of Wired, however, reports that Waymo is playing catchup:

Pushing Waymo into the real world is something of a catchup move for Google. The company once dominated the conversation about autonomy, insisting it was possible years before most companies took it seriously. But lately, that preeminence has faded. In the past year, Uber, Tesla, Baidu, Ford, and General Motors have announced aggressive plans to bring fully self-driving cars to market, with launch dates ranging from next year to 2021. Meanwhile, pressure to prove Google’s X projects could deliver on their promises mounted within the company, and a series of executives abandoned Google’s project, including longtime technical lead Chris Urmson, who was reportedly unhappy with Krafcik’s leadership.

As Uber and nuTonomy welcomed the public into self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and Singapore, respectively, Google’s car team ignored questions about how and when it would commercialize its tech. Reports claimed it was scaling back its ambitions. The effort started to look like an also-ran. Launching Waymo, at least in the public eye, puts the robot-car division back in the race.

Google has long pitched self-driving cars as a way to cut down on traffic deaths (more than a million worldwide every year) and as a tool for those who cannot drive. It’s an altruistic spin on an industry whose potential value Boston Consulting Group pegs at $42 billion a year by 2025. So putting Steve Mahan in the car feels like a publicity stunt—look at our good deeds!—until you talk to the man.