Google, Fiat Chrysler Close to Ride-Sharing Deal: Report

Imagine getting in your autonomous car and getting home safely after a night on the town, or checking your shopping list while you’re on the way to the grocery store or running other errands. That could happen sooner than you think under a deal said to be in the works between Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., and automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Waymo, a holding company created in Google’s reorganization of its automotive unit, is reportedly launching a ride-sharing service using the Italian-American automaker’s new Chrysler Pacifica minivans.
Sources close to the talks told Bloomberg News the first semi-autonomous version of the popular minivan could be available by the end of 2017.

John Krafcik, Waymo’s chief executive, told Bloomberg the “next step will be to let people use our vehicles to do everyday things like run errands, commute to work, or get safely home after a night on the town.”

In May, the Google parent company and Fiat Chrysler inked a deal to outfit about 100 Pacifica minivans will be outfitted with Google’s self-driving car technology under a deal inked Tuesday between the two parties. Under that deal, Google agreed to share the secrets of its technology — which has been tested on modifications to Lexus SUVs by Google staffers and a few two-person prototypes — with Fiat Chrysler, whose U.S. operations are based in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

More Pacificas will be needed for this deal, though.

Other automakers are developing their own autonomous vehicles in-house, but Fiat Chrysler has taken a different tact and is the first carmaker to link up with Google.

Neither Alphabet nor Fiat Chrysler would comment on the talks.

“We do not have anything additional to add to this,” Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman Dianna Gutierrez told the Detroit Free Press in an email.

Image: 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid via Fiat Chrysler Automobiles – North America