[TaylorAlexander]

I worked at Google X for two years on a different robotics effort.

In general you’re not wrong. It’s also an easy prediction to make because almost all new robotics efforts fail.

I’ll just say that they’ve been working with manufacturers for years on test projects. So this isn’t really a new thing so much as a formalization of whatever they came up with.

I’m still not sure how this stuff will go (X is of course for experimental stuff) but if the project has “graduated” to a company than I’d presume they have some revenue plan and potential customers. I could imagine that at least one of their trial projects with a manufacturer has worked out, and they think they can find more partners for this work. (I only scanned the beginning of the article)

They have been experimenting and developing a LOT of stuff since 2013 and plenty of it sadly does just get completely sacked and mothballed (and I have my personal gripes with the great projects they could have open sourced but instead they just let the bits rot). That said I think with how much I saw them working on they probably could find applications where profit is a real possibility.