As advanced and powerful as Google is as the world's most valuable company, even it can use some auto experts to enhance its Self-Driving Car Project.
Well, a recent Reuters report says Google is getting just that, having increased its autonomous-development team to at least 170 employees — most of which tout software and systems engineering backgrounds, with others coming directly from varying departments from the company itself.
However, the same report says that upwards of 40 employees had previous experience in the automotive industry, ranging with manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors and Tesla. Hey, is Elon Musk going to call Google the Tesla graveyard next, as he dubbed Apple last fall?
Google has also reportedly poached employees from SpaceX, Samsung, Motorola and Boeing, to name a few of the more well-known companies.
Altogether, Reuters verified Google's Self-Driving Car Project's employees' backgrounds with the help of LinkedIn, even building a separate link and accompanying graphic to illustrate the breakdown of experience among the team. There can even be additional employees without LinkedIn profiles who are subsequently not accounted for.
That being said, when Reuters attempted to confirm the details of its findings, Google car spokesperson Johnny Luu declined to comment.
While the findings of Reuters' report are interesting, the news outlet does point out that Google is also likely to use independent contractors for manufacturing. Bolstering that is Google having advertised for about 40 new positions on the Self-Driving Car Project team, with many of those spots being related to manufacturing. Reuters said as far as manufacturing goes, Google's team has six people with experience ranging from supplier development to purchasing and supply chain management.
Between Google, Tesla, Apple and Uber, the competition for tech talent is as intense as can be, especially considering the 2020 target date for autonomous vehicles to impact the road and be available to the public. Automakers also developing self-driving vehicles, such as Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and Ford, only add to the madness.
Regardless of which company strikes first with a fully-autonomous car, the real intrigue will come when we get to see which self-driving vehicle performs the best.
