, Columnist
Silicon Valley Won't Deliver the Next Generation of Cars
The plausible manufacturers of autonomous vehicles are the big automakers -- and they aren't in any hurry.
Self-driving cars are the future ... eventually.
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Self-driving cars are the future, we're told. But … who's going to build them?
Probably not Waymo, the autonomous vehicle technology subdivision of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc. Waymo CEO John Krafcik said in December: "We are a self-driving-technology company. We've been really clear that we're not a car company." Alphabet had profits of nearly $20 billion in 2016, and represents perhaps the best business model on the planet, with a quasi-monopoly on search and digital advertising, but its ambitions in the auto industry are more modest than they appeared a few years ago.