Is Waymo a Proxy for Alphabet Google in China?
January 4, 2022
Remember 2006. Google launched its China search engine. In 2010, Google caught a flight back to SFO. The issues revolved around control, and the Google was not about to be controlled by a mere nation state. The Google was the new big thing. For some color on this remarkable example of techno hubris, check out How Google Took on China and Lost.” (Note: You may have to pay to read this okay write up from the outfit which found the humanist Jeffrey Epstein A-OK.)
Flash forward to “Future Autonomous Waymo EV Will Be Custom Built for Ride-Hailing with No Steering Wheel.” Tucked into this write up is an item of information I find quite suggestive about China, the Google, and the adage “time heals all wounds.” Well, that’s the adage’s point of view.
The write up’s interesting item is expressed this way:
Waymo today announced an OEM collaboration with Geely, a Chinese automotive company that has several subsidiary brands like Volvo, Lotus, and Smart.
Presumably both the Chinese government sensitive Geely and the money sensitive Google are going to go on these outfits’ version of a Match.com date.
And the misunderstanding of 2006 and Dragonfly, the aborted Chinese centric search engine project (allegedly just a distant memory), is just a another Google project without wood behind it.
What online service will provide maps to the nifty new auto? Who will have access to the data the helpful vehicles will generate? What is one of these slick vehicles routes toward a facility in the US which is covertly owned by a China-affiliated entity or picks up one of those Harvard type academics who is on China’s payroll?
So many questions with what may be obvious answers.
Stephen E Arnold, January 4, 2022
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