This. When I did rough calculations a few years ago, the total economic benefits of driverless cars was on the order of a trillion dollars a year. Capturing even 10% of that would make Google by far the most valuable company in the world.
Leaving aside that licensing the technology will obviously pay for itself a thousand times over...
It's a little crass to ask the question, I think. Widespread introduction of robotic cars would be one of the greatest humanitarian achievements in American history. You don't ask what's the profit motive in cancer research, you're just glad someone cares enough to spend the money.
Not that I blame you for being curious, of course.
1. Get into the billboard business and pick routes that increase expose to Google-owned billboards.
2. Alternatively, if they don't want to get into the billboard business, sell routing influence. Bidders can pay to route cars past points of their choosing. They could both sell general place-based influence (bidders simply bid to have more cars come past their chosen point), or end-point based influence (bid to have people going to/from specific points routed past your chosen point).
For instance, suppose you have a new French restaurant, on a side street. You could pay Google to increase traffic down your street, so that more people will see your restaurant. Even better, you put out a sign announcing your grand opening, and prominently proclaiming "Higher Rated than Le Pretentious Bastard" (the top French restaurant in town), and pay Google to specifically route people who are going to Le Pretentious Bastard past your place.
3. Route based on conversation in the car. E.g., if the people riding in the car are talking about comic books, route past comic book stores (that have paid Google for this).
> 3. Route based on conversation in the car. E.g., if the people riding in the car are talking about comic books, route past comic book stores (that have paid Google for this).
Wow. Voice recognition & robot car research... I think you're on to something.
With location aware advertising that pays attention to the current conversation topics and that is capable of dropping you off at a businesses physical location which also gets charged on a CPD (cost per drop-off).
Car lowers power of air conditioner, lowers humidity
"Mum I'm thirsty! And I want icecream!"
5 minutes - Baskin & Robbins, 15 minutes supermarket, icecream 15% off if you present this qr code identified ticket
"Ah, I need to buy some milk. Let's stop by then honey."
Geez. Way to make me stare out the window blankly for a few minutes.. Strange days.
Same way they make scads of money elsewhere: sell eyeballs. It just so happens that they're freeing up millions of eyeballs by developing driverless cars.