Last week, Neowin reported that Ford had gained permission to test drive a car on Californian roads, but that the company still had much catching up to do with the likes of Google. Now it appears that Ford may announce a new partnership with Google at CES next month.
In the partnership, Ford will be contributing its manufacturing expertise and the production environment, which has likely been optimized following decades of car manufacturing. Ford"s contribution will save Google potentially billions of dollars as it won"t have to develop its own manufacturing expertise. As for Google"s contribution, it has the experience of testing self-driving cars, as it currently runs 53 test vehicles on the roads of California and Texas, clocking 1.3 million miles.
Ford gained permission, last week, to test drive one autonomous car on Californian roads and said that it would map streets and highways in the first half of 2016. In the second half of the year it would begin testing the car.
The official announcement of the joint venture will be announced by Ford at January"s Consumer Electronics Show. The deal is expected to be non-exclusive meaning Ford and Google can partner with other companies or continue to build their own self-driving cars.