Google has long been insisting that they're not working on the rumored Google Car. However, with new reports surfacing, it doesn't seem like anyone will believe Google's claims.
Google just hired Tesla's Autopilot chief engineer Robert Rose. There was no actual announcement of Google's new employee - the news simply broke out thanks to 9to5google's sharp eyes.
As it turns out, the new hire was only confirmed through Robert Rose's LinkedIn profile. After leaving Tesla Motors as an Engineering Manager for its "Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system" in October, Rose changed his current occupation to Software Engineer for Google Robotics.
While no confirmations have been made yet, it's highly possible that Robert Rose is definitely working at Google for the "driverless car program," since the tech giant refers to its self-driving car engineers as "Robotics Software Engineer," as evidenced by a job listing on the website.
This new information has further supported the rumors on Google coming up with its own car, although it could perhaps be something that can be added to existing cars. Mashable even makes a highly inarguable point:
"So why snatch up someone with experience in creating perhaps one of the most robust semi-autonomous driving systems to date if you're not planning to build and market a car? Likely, Google is instead looking to create a software backbone for automakers to add to their cars. [...] Imagine if Toyota offered an autonomous car but all it made was the physical stuff like the powertrain, seats and steering wheel, but the brains of the thing were Google powered. If Google is interested in expanding its automotive influence, that's likely the direction it's heading."
As it turns out, Tesla also hired a former Google employee while the latter was busy hiring Robert Rose. The Tesla Autopilot team hired Liang Heng, a software engineer from Google's Maps Street View team.
