Waymo forges self-driving alliance with Renault and Nissan

Enlarge / Waymo CEO John Krafcik in 2017. (credit: Misha Friedman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Waymo announced early Thursday morning that it was forming a self-driving alliance with Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi—a trio of car companies that already have strong financial ties to one another. Under the deal, the companies will “explore driverless mobility services for passengers and deliveries in France and Japan.” Renault is based in France while Nissan and Mitsubishi are Japanese companies.

The deal solves a couple of problems for Waymo.

Over the last three years, major car companies have been forging strong alliances with leading self-driving technology companies. GM bought self-driving startup Cruise, then accepted a major Cruise investment from Honda. Ford invested $1 billion in self-driving startup Argo AI and is reportedly negotiating to sell an Argo stake to Volkswagen. Toyota invested in Uber’s self-driving project. Last week, Hyundai announced it was investing in self-driving startup Aurora.