Easily one of the most exciting areas of Alphabet/Google’s future is its self-driving car unit. Today, that group got a CEO with a massive amount of automotive experience. Right now, the company reports to Sundar Pichai and Google, but could be spun out as a company under Alphabet, since it’s going to turn into a monster of a business for the parent company.
Its new CEO, John Krafcik, comes to Google with 10 years spent at Hyundai, including five years as its CEO and president. Before that, he was at Ford Motor Company for 14 years. You get the idea. Most recently, Krafcik was an exec at TrueCar, which launched at the TechCrunch50 in 2008.
Yes, true: I'm joining the Google Self-Driving Car project in late September.
— John Krafcik (@johnkrafcik) September 14, 2015
This is a great opportunity to help Google develop the enormous potential of self-driving cars. I can’t wait to get started.
— John Krafcik (@johnkrafcik) September 14, 2015
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Self-driving cars could save 1000s of lives, give people greater mobility & free us from things we find frustrating about driving today.
— John Krafcik (@johnkrafcik) September 14, 2015
Yes, the self-driving cars are cool, but every single person at Google that speaks about them mentions the safety benefits that come along with not having humans “behind the wheel.” It’s that whole “saving the world” mentality that butters up legislators who have to approve testing of autonomous vehicles.
Regardless of safety, there’s money to be made with the future. Google’s setting up a nice little sub-company to take the lead. It’s going to need it, with Uber not standing by idly.
