Why GM and Waymo Rely on Allies in Self-Driving Race
An employee works on the production line at the General Motors plant in Orion Township, Michigan.
Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/BloombergAn automaker like General Motors Co. brings two advantages to the development of self-driving vehicles: knowledge of how to build a car and the factories to do it. Silicon Valley’s biggest entrants into autonomous vehicles, particularly Alphabet Inc., have legions of coders and piles of cash.
Now GM and Alphabet have found someone else to handle the aspects of this historic undertaking that the companies are least adept at doing themselves.
Carmakers hate risking billions of dollars more than they do already to compete in a low-margin industry, and so SoftBank stepped forward on Thursday to drop $2.25 billion into GM’s Cruise Automation unit. That will help finance the rollout of a driverless ride-hailing business next year. Google’s parent company doesn’t run factories, and so on Thursday the tech giant agreed to buy tens of thousands of minivans made by Fiat Chrysler. The vehicles will be outfitted with autonomous systems designed by Alphabet’s Waymo unit.