Google RoboCars - World Domination or Salvation?

From Google (10/9):

What we’re driving at

Larry and Sergey founded Google because they wanted to help solve really big problems using technology. And one of the big problems we’re working on today is car safety and efficiency. Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.

So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.

Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.

This is killer stuff.  Google is transforming itself from search engine to global engine. Today I was reading:

Google Inc has thrown its financial clout behind an ambitious $5 billion proposed electric transmission line intended to spark investment in new wind farms off the heavily populated U.S. East Coast.

The move, which is a gamble as no offshore wind installations have yet been built in the United States, marks the Internet search giant's latest move away from its core business, joining investments in solar energy and a plan to develop a car that will drive itself.

Japan's Marubeni Corp and New York investment firm Good Energies are joining in financing the planned 350-mile underwater electric cable, which will be led by transmission-line developer Trans-Elect. It will help developers of offshore wind projects to surmount a major cost challenge -- connecting their turbines to the grid in a way that allows them to sell to multiple customers.

"This will serve as a clean-energy superhighway, with on-ramps for wind farms and the ability to be intelligently expanded," Rick Needham, Google's green business operations director, told a news conference in Washington. "We can help kick-start an industry that can provide thousands of jobs."

Watch out, they are everywhere.  While these initiatives will not drive earnings/margins in the near-term, I believe that they will ultimately pay handsome dividends.