Google car project loses leaders, advantage as rivals gain
Summary
In August, less than a year after auto industry veteran John Krafcik took the helm of the project, Mr Urmson left with much work remaining: Google has yet to launch an autonomous vehicle service for the public. "Google still has an imperfect system and no clear path to go to market," said Ajay Juneja, chief executive officer of Speak With Me Inc, which offers voice recognition and related technology for cars, watches and other connected devices. Ubers service, which is tied to the smartphones of drivers and passengers, can generate a lot more driving data, an essential ingredient to quickly train the artificial intelligence software needed to guide self-driving vehicles, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a recent research note. The two main ways for Google to commercialise the technology are by including Chauffeur, the name for its self-driving software, in cars made in high volume by existing auto manufacturers, or through a popular ride-sharing service that could slowly replace a human-driven fleet with automated vehicles, industry experts said. Several years ago, some on the team wanted to push ahead with a service that didnt require full automation, but Google co-founder Larry Page insisted on complete human driver replacement, another person said.
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