Google has announced a CEO for its self-driving car initiative, selecting auto industry veteran John Krafcik to lead its efforts in this segment. Krafcik will take over from Chris Urmson, who will oversee the project as technical director.
Krafcik served as the CEO of Hyundai Motor America from 2008 to 2013, following a fourteen-year stint at Ford in product development. He's slated to commence his role as the CEO of Google's autonomous car initiative later this month. The news comes on the heels of last week's announcement that the search giant is set to increase manufacturing of its self-driving car prototypes.
A Google spokesperson commented to Re/code that the project would remain in Google's X labs for now, although it could be spun off into its own company in the Alphabet umbrella in the future:
The project is not becoming an Alphabet company at this stage, though it's certainly a good candidate to become one at some point in the future.
Source: Re/code
