In recent months, Google has been ramping up its efforts in the Self-Driving car market, with several of its unmanned vehicles rolling around the streets of San Francisco. Now Google has appointed former Hyundai America CEO John Krafcik to head up the division. Krafcik has more than two decades of experience within the automotive industry, having also been at Ford, as well as TrueCar, an automotive price comparison site.

Google confirms that Krafcik will take the reigns later this month, but there is no indication at this stage on whether Google will in fact start producing cars commercially. "We know what we're good at," said Google's director of communications, Courtney Hohne, adding, "we'll partner with many different companies to bring this technology into the world safely." While that is not a definitive statement on where the Self-Driving car roadmap is going for Google, it appears as if a role as technology provider, rather than carmaker, is the direction the company will take for now.

While the appointment of Krafcik has lead The Verge to believe that commercial operations are a part of Google's Self-Driving car division, it still remains a part of the company's X platform, for research and special projects, at this stage.