Google driverless car
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Autonomous cars |
| Predecessor | Google Self-Driving Car Project |
| Founded | December 13, 2016 |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California, United States |
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Key people
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John Krafcik (CEO) Kevin Vosen (CLO) |
| Parent |
Google Inc (2009–2016) Alphabet Inc. (2016–present) |
| Website | waymo |
John Krafcik (CEO)
Waymo is an autonomous car development company spun out of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., in December 2016. It then took over the self-driving car project which Google had begun in 2009. Alphabet describes Waymo as “a self-driving tech company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around.” The new company, which will be headed by long-time automotive executive John Krafcik, is working towards making self-driving cars available to the public soon. From the company's FAQ:
Google's self driving car project was formerly led by Sebastian Thrun, former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.
In October 2010, an attorney for the California Department of Motor Vehicles raised concerns that "[t]he technology is ahead of the law in many areas," citing state laws that "all presume to have a human being operating the vehicle".
According to a May 2011 article in The New York Times, policy makers and regulators have argued that new laws will be required if driverless vehicles are to become a reality because "the technology is now advancing so quickly that it is in danger of outstripping existing law, some of which dates back to the era of horse-drawn carriages".
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Wikipedia