Report: Alphabet seeking an R&D site for its self-driving cars near Ann Arbor, Michigan

According to a report over the weekend from Crain’s Detroit Business, Google/Alphabet is seeking an R&D site for its self-driving cars near Ann Arbor, Michigan. This report comes as FCC documents last month revealed that the Mountain View company was planning to bring the cars to four new cities. Kirkland, Washington officially became one of those locations two weeks ago, and as we noted, a location near Ann Arbor makes perfect sense to be one of the next bunch…

The report says that the company is looking for at least 30,000 square feet, and has scouted out locations in Southfield, Troy, and Farmington Hills, all towns within reasonable distance of Google’s campus in Ann Arbor.

Google Inc. is in the market for new high-tech space in the suburbs. Sources say the Internet giant has been scouting for locations of at least 30,000 square feet for R&D space related to autonomous vehicles.

The locations that have been considered so far include Southfield, Troy and Farmington Hills.

While Google seems focused on only expanding to a few more cities in the US for now, a report from to The Guardian last week said England officials have met with Google to persuade the company to bring its cars across the pond to London as well.

Dedring said: “It’s going to have to work in big cities, so why don’t we start trialling it now? Google have said they are focused on the US, but they’re starting to think about going elsewhere, so we’re in active discussions.

“We met them a few weeks ago to see whether they would do trials here. It is still very early days, but we would be keen for trials to happen in London whenever Google are ready to move them into other countries.”

Lately it seems Google/Alphabet is going pedal to the metal with its self-driving car initiative, and government regulations seem to be playing along nicely with the company’s plans. FCC documents last week revealed that Google is perhaps testing a wireless charging system for the cars, and a patent that also surfaced last week suggests that the company could be working on an autonomous delivery system using trucks.