Signaling ever more clearly its intention to put an autonomous vehicle on American roads, Google has hired veteran automobile executive John Krafcik to run its self-driving car division.
Krafcik, currently president of the online car-shopping company TrueCar, was formerly a top officer of Ford and Hyundai, where he served as president and chief executive of the South Korean car company’s U.S. operations.
Starting Sept. 15, Krafcik will be CEO of Google’s nascent self-driving car division. He replaces Chris Urmson, who will remain in charge of development for the technical side of the autonomous-vehicle program.
Krafcik will retain his seat on the TrueCar board.
“We’re investing in building out a team that can help us bring this technology to its full potential in the coming year, said Google spokesperson Kara Berman. “John’s combination of technical expertise and auto industry experience will be particularly valuable as we collaborate with many different partners to achieve our goal of transforming mobility for millions of people.”
The company will not, however, begin building cars any time soon.
“We’re not going to manufacture cars,” Berman said. “We’re a long way from the sort of scale operation that we’d need to really bring self-driving cars to consumers in a meaningful way.”
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