Google Redraws Detroit's Map

The Wall Street Journal

By JUSTIN LAHART

Jan. 12, 2014 5:19 p.m. ET

Associated Press

In the race to build in-car information systems, Google GOOG +1.79% may be destined for the checkered flag for one simple reason: It has the killer map.

At the International CES show last week, Google and several car makers, including General Motors, GM +1.02% launched the Open Automotive Alliance. This is a plan to establish Google's Android operating system as a common platform for apps in the connected car.

That opens a new front in Google's battle with Apple, AAPL +1.73% which announced plans last year to integrate its devices into car makers' dashboard control panels, and Microsoft, MSFT +1.92% which developed in-car voice-activated and touch-screen technologies with Ford Motor. F +1.11%

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Given rivals' earlier moves, Google could be seen as having a late start. But the open nature of Android has obvious appeal. The ability for a company to customize Android persuades even Google's rivals to use it;Amazon.com, AMZN +1.09% for example, tweaked the software for its own Kindle reading device. Given vehicle development's long lead times, these are important considerations.

More important may be Google's map expertise. Having sent cars with cameras all over the world to develop its Street View capabilities, the company has created maps that are extremely accurate and up-to-date where others aren't. Think of the apology Apple had to issue in 2012 following criticism of a new version of its own Maps app, which was designed to replace Google's.

The popularity of Google's maps for devices running Android and Apple's iOS creates a network effect. The more people who use Google Maps, the more information Google has on factors such as traffic, and the more appealing the product becomes. Such was the logic behind Google's purchase of Waze, a real-time traffic-information app, last year.

And don't forget a big reason for Google's interest in cartography is its autonomous vehicle program. A crash means something quite different for a car compared with a smartphone. To minimize the potential for error, a must from both a regulatory and product-liability standpoint, a self-driving car needs a painstakingly accurate map.

With a gaggle of companies demonstrating autonomous and semiautonomous vehicle technology at CES, and likely at this week's auto show in Detroit, the day when commercially available self-driving cars cruise U.S. roads looks less a futurist daydream and more a rapidly approaching reality. "With U.S. drivers driving 75 billion hours a year, autonomous cars are also poised to have a much greater impact on society as a whole than most people give them credit for," Morgan Stanley said in a recent report.

Google's autonomous-car program is a big reason the concept is being taken so seriously within the automotive industry. It isn't hard to envision the company licensing the technology for car makers just as right now it provides its Android operating system to smartphone manufacturers.

At the least, car companies may want to tap Google's map technology for their programs. But Google's wider product offering means they may see it as being in their best interest to build a closer relationship with it over the long term.

All of which gives Google an advantage over the likes of Apple as the autonomous age arrives and Detroit and drivers venture into unfamiliar territory without a map.

Write to Justin Lahart at justin.lahart@wsj.com

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