[aeturnum]

I disagree that they're making the same play as Google. Google has never claimed they're going to make a self-driving car, or offer it as a service. As far as I can tell with a few minutes of googling, they don't even have a home page for the project. It's a research project and a tool to "push" the law in the direction Google wants.

Amazon, on the other hand, is 100% offering a product. It has a name, and they indicate a plan to, "enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place." This is partially about getting into the game early, but it's also focused on a product in a way that Google's car isn't.

[RuggeroAltair]

I don't think we disagree on that. I'm not talking about the product side of things. I said and mean that Amazon is pushing for standards, regulations, laws etc. also by showing the possible demand side.

The reason why Google doesn't have a product, can be for multiple reasons, for example because they may (who knows) only want to create an Android OS-like self driving system, not necessarily building the cars. It's the same they did with smart phones.

If they want to dominate the car OS market, they might not need to present it as a product at this stage.

They just need, as Amazon, to push it enough to gain momentum and be one of the early players.

[jeffgreco]

The recent New Yorker piece on Google's driverless cars makes it very clear that Google's intention from day one was to bring this to market as a product, even if it requires partnering with another company: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_...