General Motors is open to working with Google on developing self-driving car technology, the automaker’s chief technology officer said in Detroit.
“I’m not in charge of deciding what we will and won’t do, but I’d say we’d certainly be open to having a discussion with them,” Jon Lauckner told Reuters at the auto show.
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He commented two days before the head of Google’s self-driving car project, Chris Urmson, was scheduled to speak at a conference held annually in conjunction with the auto show. Urmson is expected to announce his company’s plans to seek partnerships within the auto industry.
Lauckner said any automaker teaming up with Google would need to establish how the relationship would work.
“You have to figure out how would something like that actually work,” he said. “Would it be something where it would be an opportunity to work together in a joint development agreement?”
“I’d say probably anybody who’s interested ought to at least go over and kick the tyres,” Lauckner said.
He said GM had worked with many of the people who are now in Google’s self-driving car program. Urmson was at Carnegie Mellon when the university worked with GM on a self-driving SUV that won a DARPA challenge in 2007.
“I’d be completely surprised if Google doesn’t have something to offer,” Lauckner told Reuters.
“We know they have talented people and we know they have capability.”
