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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Fiat Chrysler will build around 100 driverless hybrid minivans [bbc.com] for Google, more than doubling the size of the Google Self-Driving Car Project's fleet. The two companies will co-locate engineers [npr.org] at a facility in Michigan to design the vehicles. The partnership [prnewswire.com] comes despite dismissive comments in the past from Fiat's CEO about the tech industry's intrusion into the automotive industry:

Fiat Chrysler has announced a deal with Google to double the size of the tech giant's fleet of self-driving cars. Fiat will supply 100 Chrysler Pacifica vans and provide engineers to help integrate the technology. The companies described the deal as the most advanced partnership to date between Silicon Valley and a traditional carmaker. Google wants to add more cars to its fleet to increase the amount of road testing it does.

Fiat's chief executive has in the past raised also concerns about the tech industry's impact on the carmakers. Sergio Marchionne called tech companies moving into the sector "disruptive interlopers" and questioned the calibre of the vehicles they could produce.

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