Rumors that Ford and Google might be launching a joint venture in the nascent autonomous driving sector were expected to be confirmed at last week’s CES Show in Las Vegas, but although that didn’t happen, the two companies are still said to have plans for a collaboration in the works.

In a Wall Street Journal exclusive, the paper says the two companies are still planning a joint venture, according to “people familiar with the plans”.

According to the report, the idea is to create a new company wherein Ford would focus on building the cars, software and systems needed for the automotive parts, with Google designing the self-driving software that runs on them. The big advantage is it means both companies would be able to concentrate on what they do best – Ford knows very well how to make cars after all, and Google’s expertise in software is certainly better than that of its new-found ally.

The WSJ’s exclusive came in the context of a bigger story on how Executive Chairman Bill Ford is planning to pivot his company to avoid being disrupted by self-driving technology, amid a declining interest in car ownership. What with upstarts like Uber Technologies Inc. gaining so much popularity all over the world, more people are taking advantage of on-demand transportation services, and that lessens the desire to own a car yourself.

Google refused to comment on the story, but Ford’s CEO Mark Fields did admit that the automaker is “open to all possibilities”.

A partnership makes sense. Google has been developing self-driving cars for several years now, and is probably one of the leaders as far as autonomous driving software goes. Ford, as mentioned above, knows better than Google how to build actual cars.

It was expected that Google and Ford’s partnership would be announced at CES last week, but that didn’t happen, and the WSJ gave no indication of when the plans might be made public.

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