The media is buzzing with coverage and speculation on Google's recently-disclosed trials of self-driving automobiles. The big question: Does it have anything to do with Search?
Most people did a double-take when they saw the news that Google has been actively trialling autonomous automobiles on California's highways. Certainly, we were scratching our heads here at Qwerius. As the official Google Blog put it:
“So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles.”
Google does give a clear reason for this surprising new channel of development: the blog post speaks of preventing accidents, saving lives, freeing up people's time, cutting carbon emissions.
The video below gives a not-too-revealing glimpse of the pimped-up Google Prius in action on public roads. A New York Times article on Google's self-driving cars provides a much better insight into the technology and extent of the tests — but not much of a hint on… Why?
Second-guessing Google
So what could be driving Google? Why would the search giant put what must be dozens of millions of shareholders' capital into hands-free motoring?
Explanation 1: It's just plain Google altruism
The first and perhaps simplest explanation combines Google's reputation for experimentation and innovation with the idealistic benefits-for-society mindset of its founders. Perhaps this is nothing more than a 'let's see where it takes us' thing bringing together big budgets, loads of boys' toys and a sense that Google can make sci-fi happen — and maybe make money down the road a bit.
Explanation 2: Google sees a way of making money, fairly soon, from robot cars
Many Google-watchers point out that Google is a public company with shareholders to answer to — and that although Google is rich and successful, it's also essentially a one-product company; any less-charmed organisation would be considered vulnerable in the extreme. So, they reason, Google must have some reasonably imminent prospect of turning self-driving cars into a revenue stream.
And Google is already seriously engaged with the mobile market and the motor industry in particular. New models with Google-enabled sat-nav will be hitting the road in 2011 — and those same cars typically do other things like reading speed limits and other road signs — bang in the same territory as Google's Californian experiment. So far from being a sudden and unexpected swerve for Google, the autonomous auto seems to fit nicely on the existing auto-industry road map.
If Google's already on the road and in the car, why should it stop at being an accessory or aftermarket add-on? The company is certainly more than capable of making huge contributions — and of speeding up the auto industry's sluggish development crawl — in areas like telematics and mobile data. In any case, Google would be daft to sit aside and simply watch the emergence of a whole new technology and a raft of first-to-market competitors who might later come to own the in-car informatics sector. Get in early, do it right.
Is it a Search play, or a new stream?
If Google is going to be in the car cabin from next year onwards — presumably dishing out local and general search overlaid on a Maps product — then the company is already up and running in automobile-based search. In this context, it's less surprising to hear of a fleet of Google robot vehicles buzzing around California's roads: the learnings from this exercise could give the company a huge lead in Search, mobile mapping and location-based offerings.
Some industry-watchers suggest that it's significant that, right there in the robot-cars announcement, Google makes the following observation:
In terms of time efficiency, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that people spend on average 52 minutes each working day commuting. Imagine being able to spend that time more productively.
The significance of this comment, it's argued, is that it hints that Google's payback for playing with self-driving autos is the way it will inform, entertain and assist the millions of drivers who will have nothing to do once the driving is in the safe hands of a Google-enabled robot. And that would be a Search and advertising play, fair and square.
But surely that's a bit far-fetched? A bit of a long way off? Especially when you consider the huge technological, financial, legal and consumer-attitudinal shifts that must occur before significant levels of adoption start to turn self-driving cars into a revenue stream from Google.
Our own guess is that Google is driving at a whole new data business with a 10–15 year look-ahead. Sure, Search must certainly play a part in that, but this is about something much bigger than a new channel for Search revenues. What's your guess?
