Google Auto's car manufacturing ambitions revealed in new documents

Google's self-driving car project has been spun off into its own company, as revealed by documents obtained by The Guardian. A Public Records Act request in California reveals that Google Auto LLC has been hiding within the greater company, but driving around in plain sight, since 2011.

The existence of a separate company centered around Google's self-driving car efforts is notable for several reasons. Other high profile Google products in recent years - think Google Glass - weren't spun off into their own company. Potentially more telling, though, is Google Auto's classification as a "passenger vehicle manufacturer."

Google's initial, or at least initial public, experimentations with driverless cars were centered around modified Prius vehicles, and then 23 highly customized cars manufactured by Lexus. Google Auto LLC's passenger vehicle manufacturer status would seem to hint that the tech company is preparing to take the wheel by itself, without the aid of previously established automaker partners.

The Guardian reveals key findings about the current fleet of 100 vehicles being tested by Google Auto. Mark Harris of the Guardian writes:

"To avoid onerous safety requirements and crash tests, Google Auto’s cars would be lightweight low speed vehicles (LSVs), capable of a top speed of only 25mph.

Paperwork filed by Google Auto with the NHTSA, and seen by the Guardian, indicates that the cars are rear-wheel drive in design, with each wheel having its own braking system. The cars are powered by a modest 20-30kW electric motor from a lithium ion battery. All the cars built so far have been assembled on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, by Google’s manufacturing partner, the engineering firm Roush."

Despite a flurry of headlines this summer about self-driving car crashes and traffic incidents, public fascination and outright anticipation of a driverless future remain unquestionably high. You had better believe that Google is counting on that.

“The ambition for Google is always to go all the way [from research] to product,” Sebastian Thrun, an engineer from Google's original self-driving car project, told the Guardian. Having the curtain lifted on Google Auto LLC, even just a little, would seem to confirm that.