Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) chief executive Sergio Marchionne said working with Google convinced him that self-driving technology is closer than he thought and could be on the road in five years.
“I don’t find it that unsettling,” Marchionne said on Friday. “I see this as having tremendous use in real life.”
FCA and Google parent Alphabet Inc announced a partnership earlier this week. The companies will work together to add self-driving technology to 100 Chrysler Pacifica minivans for testing purposes.
Photo: AP
This is the first time Google has worked directly with an auto company to install self-driving sensors and computers. Marchionne discussed the partnership at a ceremony to mark launch of Pacifica production at FCA’s plant in Windsor, Ontario. The Pacifica is replacing the Chrysler Town and Country.
Some automakers have been reluctant to team up with tech companies because they want to own the technology in their cars, but Marchionne said it is too early to say who would lead the transition to a self-driving future, so it is smart for FCA to work with others and learn what it can.
“Making unequivocal bets and precluding development with others is a very dangerous path, at least in our view,” he said.
Marchionne said FCA and Google would have to work out specifics — like who owns the data in the cars — down the road.
“We need to get to the stage where the car is viable before we can discuss the spoils,” he said.
Marchionne said it was initially unsettling to get into Google’s self-driving test cars in California, but as he rode in them he felt “absolutely safe.”
“You could almost feel the reasoning process that the car was going through,” he said. “It’s like watching a robot execute, and it executes well.”
The experience left him feeling that self-driving cars have great potential, he said, as long as regulators establish rules for their use.
The partnership is limited. Google is not licensing its autonomous software to FCA, for example, and both companies are free to work with other partners.
Marchionne said it does not bother him that Google would work with other automakers. FCA is in a weaker bargaining position than much wealthier tech companies, he said, but it knows how to make cars, which Google has said it does not want to do.
Google is to use the hybrid version of the Pacifica, which is being built for the partnership now, but goes on sale to the public at the end of this year.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS