Google names CEO of self-driving car division

Mr. John Krafcik, who will be joining as the new CEO of Google self driving vehicle project is a mechanical engineer with a business degree.

Google is already testing its self-driving cars on public streets around its home office in Mountain View, California and in Austin, Texas. To get closer in the years, John worked as an exec at TrueCar, Inc., which is an automotive pricing and information website for new and used car buyers and dealers. He was the CEO for Hyundai Motor America from 2008 to 2013, and he served a 14-year stint in product development for Ford before that.

Though while speaking with AutomotiveNews, a spokesperson said Krafcik’s hiring is no indication that Google is preparing to produce cars themselves.

After holding several leadership positions at Ford, he joined Hyundai and stayed there for ten years. “John’s combination of technical expertise and auto-industry experience will be particularly valuable as we collaborate with many different partners to achieve our goal”. The appointment of Krafcik may imply that Google’s self-driving car may be close to being on sale considering that he was responsible for pushing Hyundai sales in the United States. Pictured: a prototype Google’s self-driving car, a likely candidate to use the new tablet technology. Its cars log roughly 10,000 miles a week in autonomous driving mode, with trained drivers sitting behind the wheel.

“This is about getting ourselves ready for the future, so we can bring the technology to its full potential”, Google wrote in statement.

It would be interesting to see how this particular industry develops, and whether the self-driving cars will be made affordable to the masses or not. This way, it doesn’t have to deal with certain issues involved in making cars, such as the exorbitant entry costs and low margins. Krafcik takes over the lead role from Chris Urmson, who is moving over to a technical director on the project.

“We still have a lot to learn about how people perceive our vehicles and how they’ll want to fit this technology into their lives and their communities”, said Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne in an email.