Reports in the media suggest that Fiat Chrysler (www.fcagroup.com) is to team up with the parent company of search-engine giant Google — Alphabet Inc (abc.xyz) — to develop around 100 self-driving prototypes based on the car maker’s Pacifica mini-van, which will be available as a plug-in hybrid.

Fiat Chrysler says that it plans to equip the new Pacifica with Google technology later this year. This will include a suite of sensors, controllers and a computer, which will be used for on-road testing.

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne mentioned a possible partnership with Google last December. He has been quoted in the past as saying that car makers waste capital developing multiple versions of the same technology and that the industry should consolidate to become more profitable. He intends to put Fiat Chrysler in a better position for a merger by the time he steps down as the CEO in 2018.

Google began working on self-driving cars in 2014, and it has run more than 1.4 million miles of tests on its own driverless prototypes.

For Fiat Chrysler, the deal would provide “a short-cut to technology features that have taken on growing importance for the automotive industry”. Mr Marchionne said that both companies will send members of their engineering team to a facility in south-eastern Michigan to speed up the process of design, testing and manufacturing of the self-driving Pacifica.

Meanwhile, Mr Marchionne was earlier this month named as the new CEO of Italian sports car maker Ferrari, replacing Amedeo Felisa “with immediate effect” (Mr Marchionne has been the chairman of Ferrari since October 2014). The move came as Ferrari reported its best first-quarter earnings ever, a 19% year-on-year increase in its net profit to 78 million euros.