Daimler CEO: Google, Apple Further Along With Car Projects
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said a recent trip to Silicon Valley revealed that tech companies such as Google and Apple were making significant progress on autonomous cars, German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported ( via Reuters).
“Our impression was that these companies can do more and know more than we had previously assumed. At the same time they have more respect for our achievements than we thought,” Zetsche said, according to the report.
Zetsche said he and other managers from the automaker met with tech companies in Silicon Valley, but didn’t disclose what those companies were.
“There were concrete talks. I will not say anything about the content. It was not just about the fact that there is an innovative spirit in the Valley. We know that already. We wanted to see what drives it, and all the things that can be created from it,” Zetsche told the paper, explaining that they had also looked at start-up firms.
Zetsche’s comments about Google and Apple were especially surprising considering it’s unclear whether those companies could supply automakers with autonomous technology or build their own cars. Zetsche said last year that Google would be a better supplier than automaker.
More by Aaron Cole
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I think it helps that cars have pretty much all of the needed hardware now. If you've got a vehicle with adaptive cruise control, auto-park assist, lane-keeping assist, forward collision avoidance, 360-degree cameras, and blind-spot monitoring, you pretty much have everything but the software.
Can someone please explain why all the automakers are putting so much effort into autonomous cars? What is the real societal benefit autonomous cars will give us?
The concern is what sort of problems self-driving cars will cause and situations that they will not handle. Will they always cruise at 55 MPH in a 55 zone? Will they let you hurry when you're running late? How will they handle fog? Would anyone trust them on a winding mountain road next to a steep drop-off? Will they avoid potholes or plow right through them? Will they adapt to gravel roads? Can they handle a parking garage?T How about an area with no GPS? The list goes on and on.
+1 Can they find street parking that isn't driveway or hydrant?