Waymo to study driverless services with ‘auto alliance’

Bloomberg

Waymo LLC agreed to explore driverless services with Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co and Mitsubishi Motors Corp, pairing a leader in self-driving technology with the world’s largest automotive alliance.
The three carmakers and Alphabet Inc’s autonomous-vehicle unit will study market opportunities and research legal and safety issues related to driverless transportation services in France and Japan, the companies said in a statement. The deal doesn’t extend to cooperation producing robo-vehicles.
“We’re convinced that with this added expertise, we’ll be able to position ourselves for autonomous services that are viable for customers,” Hadi Zablit, senior vice president for business development
at the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, told reporters in Paris. When it comes to implementation, the three automakers won’t necessarily offer services in common with Waymo, he said.
The French-Japanese alliance produced more than 10 million vehicles last year — on a par with the biggest carmakers: Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp.
Unlike Waymo’s previously announced deals with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Tata Motors Ltd’s Jaguar Land Rover, the partnership with Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi doesn’t include supplying
any cars. Waymo’s parent company, Alphabet, struck a separate deal with the three-way partnership, giving its Google Android operating system access to their vehicle dashboards starting in 2021.
The new agreement marks a first step towards developing long-term, profitable driverless-vehicle services for passengers and deliveries, the companies said.