"We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 to make driving safer, more enjoyable, and more efficient." OK so Google Labs is shut down and Google starts

"We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 to make driving safer, more enjoyable, and more efficient." OK so Google Labs is shut down and Google starts charging for various APIs but decides the world needs to be a better place so invests into this? I'm skeptical (even though I think this is AWESOME). What's the real story here? Is it the extra eyeball time they get by having self-driving cars? Whereas in the past people would spend 20-60 minutes, or more, concentrating exclusively on driving each day, they could now spend that time online? I guess growth at Google is difficult when you're already the most popular search engine in the world and there's a fixed 24 hour day, the best you can do is change the % of that time people spend online, and implicitly, using your search engine. No doubt the front-end will feature Internet connectivity with a Google portal.