Google, a car company? Well that sounds pretty strange, doesn’t it? Yet at the same time it also sounds very exciting, and it kind of makes sense, and not just because Google was already researching self-driving car technology. I believe that in the future the car companies that will be successful will be the companies that will be “tech companies” at their core.
This means it will be companies like Google or Apple (I think Steve Jobs was thinking about making a car, too, later on) that will be making the best, most modern and most advanced cars in the world. Tesla Motors is also much more of a Silicon Valley type of tech company, than a Detroit type of “car company”. They are also very tech oriented, and very future-oriented.
Tesla Model S is a car built from the ground up to be an all-electric car, unlike many other electric cars from other car companies, that are just re-used gasoline cars, but with batteries inside, which means they won’t be very efficient and won’t get a lot of mileage. As we’ve seen recently with the Model S safety tests, Tesla is also built using technology from Space X – the rocket company – which makes it so durable.
Why am I talking so much about Tesla? Because I think Google would be a perfect match with its self-driving technology for Tesla cars. Both of them scream “the future”, as one is offering an all-electric future – something I believe not only that all cars should be, but will be – while the other is offering to get rid of the driver in cars, and just make the car completely automated.
Making it run on electricity will make it much more flexible in the future, in terms of efficiency, because once you can put some sort of invisible solar panel cells on top these cars, which happen to drive all day long, and be charged by the sun, then the costs of maintaining these cars will go way down, especially when you don’t even need drivers. This makes it perfect for the “robotaxis”, which Google plans to make.
I think the idea of having Google make its own cars is also an exciting one, but only if those cars are all-electric. If they aren’t, then I wouldn’t like it as much. Google has invested a lot in renewable energy technologies and installations, but if they choose to make electric self-driving cars, instead of gas-powered ones, that would be the biggest thing they’ve ever done in the renewable energy industry, because these cars will have the potential to be very popular. Google could eventually have millions of them, if successful.
It would be so helpful for the environment if all of them were electric, and eventually self-charging from the sun. These are all exciting ideas, that if applied, could make Google a much bigger “tech company” in the future, than they are today – and they could also prove they can make money from hardware, too (including cars), and not just from ads.