Why the Google car might be in trouble

Google’s self-driving car may have reached the end of the road, with its technology boss Chris Urmson, who led the project for seven years, resigning earlier this month. The departure comes amid a move from Google to team up with the automotive industry, rather than challenge it, in the race for autonomy.

According to a note sent out by auto analysts at investment bank Evercore ISI, the Google Self-Driving Car Project was clearly in trouble. “The Google driverless project is likely not as advanced as many believe,” it said.

Perhaps one of the reasons for Urmson’s exit was the Google car project’s philosophical U-turn performed last September, with the hiring of ex-Hyundai US boss John Krafcik as CEO of the Google self-driving project. Google also recently signed a deal with Fiat-Chrysler to build autonomous prototypes based on the company’s Chrysler Pacifica MPV, all of which suggests that any idea that Google would put its own self-driving cars into production now looks increasingly unlikely.

Additionally, not only do the Google cars have a self-imposed 40.23kph top speed, it took until 2011 for fully autonomous testing on public roads to become legal in the US, when Nevada changed its local laws. Google’s home state, California, didn’t change the law until this year and the car is still only legal in four states.

However, California’s regulations contained one crucial clause, which could well have sunk the Google car for good – Article 3.7, paragraph 227.18 of the order states: A manufacturer shall not permit any of its autonomous vehicles to be operated on public roads in California when the operator is not seated in the driver’s seat and either monitoring its operations and able to take over physical control of the vehicle, or in physical control of the vehicle.

The requirement for autonomous vehicles to have a conventional steering wheel and brake pedals was a major setback for a stand-alone Google car. It’s understood that Urmson was involved in political lobbying to try to get this clause rescinded. His departure makes this unlikely, especially as major car manufacturers are already testing conventional cars fitted with autonomous tech, such as Audi’s A5 and A7 prototypes.

Another big issue for the Google Self-Driving Car Project is whether Google’s own mapping base can be used for autonomous driving. Many in the industry say it can’t, which is why the HERE mapping division was bought from Nokia by Daimler, Audi and BMW.

But despite these departures and legislative hurdles, the Google project remains committed to seeing true self-serving vehicles, according to a recent Bloomberg interview with new project boss Krafcik. He highlighted the recent fatal accident involving a Tesla driver using the Autopilot function as an example of the problems with what’s known as ‘level two’ autonomy.

Krafcik revealed that Google tested this combination of radar cruise control and lane keep assist in 2012 and found that its drivers started to zone out and even started texting or “reaching into the rear seats”.

Krafcik says he remains convinced that full level four autonomy, “which is our focus at Google”, is still the best outcome. He added that Google’s deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles calls for 100 autonomous Pacifica prototypes, “which would double our test fleet”. He also admits that building a car is a significant hurdle. “Google realised that it’s really hard to build a car,” he said. “We built the little prototype that gave us a taste of the complexity.”

So, while the stand-alone Google car may be dead, the project to embed Google self-driving technology into future models from mass carmakers clearly isn’t.