Google's Waymo Signals Shift In Self-Driving Car Project

Google had spent the last year or more setting itself up as one of the biggest names in self-driving cars. Now the tech giant is detaching its self-driving car from Google's research and development lab, instead creating a stand-alone company called Waymo to handle the development of their autonomous vehicles.

A Step Back or a Leap Forward?

Google announced they had partnered with Ford to create their self-driving cars, last year. At the time, Google's self driving cars had already clocked 1.3 million miles. Then, not five months later, they announced yet another partnership, this one with Fiat-Chrysler to create a self-driving minivan. Finally, the company said it was working with Chrysler to create around 100 self-driving Pacifica Minivans, which should be available later in 2017.

Now, the whole self-driving car project is being spun off into its own stand-alone company: Waymo. Industry experts say that this is a sign that Google is ready to move out of research and into commercialization, with Waymo's partnerships pushing the growing self-driving car industry.

"Our next step as Waymo will be to let people use our vehicles to do everyday things like run errands, commute to work, or get safely home after a night on the town," said John Krafcik, the former Hyundai executive, now Waymo's CEO, in a Medium post.

The Competition

Google, or now Waymo, is far from the only name in self driving cars: Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and even Nissan are getting their own self-driving cars on the road, and even companies like Bosch and Delphi are getting their feet wet.

With 94 percent of car accidents being caused by human error, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, the push toward affordable and functional self-driving cars could potentially save thousands of lives every year. Right now, most of us can't afford the price tag on a Tesla. So the biggest challenge for all of those companies that are dipping their fingers into the self-driving pot is making the cars affordable.

Even Uber's started getting on the self-driving bandwagon. The ride-sharing company introduced self-driving Uber's in Pittsburgh, and has most recently expanded it to the San Francisco.

Right now, we've just got the basic information about Waymo, Google's new self-driving car company, with more information to come about how the company's partnerships with companies like Ford and Chrysler will effect Waymo's implementation of self-driving technologies.

-Scott Huntington has written for Forbes, Business Insider and CarBuzz.