谷歌拆分無人汽車業務 新成立Waymo公司

Google is putting its self-driving car technology into a new company which it will call Waymo, the firm has announced. Waymo will be owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet.

谷歌日前宣佈，將把其無人駕駛汽車技術投入一家名爲Waymo的新公司。Waymo將歸谷歌母公司Alphabet所有。

At a media event, the company showed the story of a blind man who was able to make a full trip using a prototype self-driving car.

在一次媒體活動中，Waymo公司講述了一位盲人的故事，他能夠使用原型無人駕駛汽車完成一次完整的旅行。

"Steve Mahan rode alone in our prototype vehicles, cruising through Austin's suburbs,” wrote Google's John Krafcik. "Steve is legally blind, so our sensors and software were his chauffeur."

谷歌的約翰·克拉富西克寫道：“史蒂夫·馬漢獨自駕駛我們的原型汽車，遊覽了奧斯汀的郊區。史蒂夫是法定盲人，所以我們的傳感器和軟件是他的司機。”

Mr Krafcik will become Waymo's chief executive. The company said it will try to apply the technology behind self-driving vehicles to other purposes.

克拉富西克先生將成爲Waymo的首席執行官。該公司表示，會嘗試將無人駕駛汽車背後的技術用作其他目的。

While other companies, most notably electric car maker Tesla, have managed to roll out elements of self-driving technology to real roads, Google has been taking a far more cautious approach.

雖然其他公司，如最著名的電動汽車製造商特斯拉，已經設法將無人駕駛技術的元素到推廣到真正的道路上，但是谷歌一直採取更加謹慎的方法。

The Waymo's announcement could suggest that Google will deviate from its original goal of only offering 100% self-driving vehicles.

Waymo公司的聲明可能暗示，谷歌將偏離其原始目標--僅提供100％無人駕駛汽車。

Google did not respond to reports that it was abandoning making its own car in favour of working with other, perhaps more established, carmakers.

有報道稱，谷歌放棄製造自己的汽車，也許是爲了與更成熟的汽車製造商達成合作。不過谷歌公司並未對此作出迴應。