Google has been working on self-driving cars for a very long time now, for years the unit has remained part and parcel of Google, but with the major corporate level shakeup that happened at Mountain View earlier this year it looks like the company’s self-driving car division may spinoff into a separate company, if a new report is to be believed.
Citing a person briefed on the company’s strategy, Bloomberg reports that Google is going to make its self-driving cars unit a separate business under the Alphabet corporate umbrella in the coming year. It was earlier this year in August when Google announced its reorganization with Alphabet becoming the conglomerate under which various companies like Google operate.
The new company will reportedly offer rides for hire, not unlike Uber, though it may potentially be cheaper since no humans will be employed. So far Google’s self-driving cars have driven for more than one million miles in San Francisco and Austin, Texas, those cities may be the first where the service is launched.
Alphabet and Google co-founder Sergey Brin did say in September that Google’s self-driving technology may first be launched in the form of a service as it would give the opportunity to a whole lot of people to see what the technology can do, before they’re presumably allowed to purchase cars that can drive on their own.
Google has not yet commented on this report.
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