Ford CEO Mark Fields is about to make a big announcement next month at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Get ready for it because some gearheads may not like this. According to Yahoo Autos, Ford and Google will be creating a joint venture to build self-driving cars that'll utilize the latter's technology. Google, in turn, will benefit from Ford's manufacturing expertise, thus saving billions of dollars. In fact, earlier in 2015 Google co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged his company was seeking an automotive manufacturing partner.

Ford appears to be the first to bite. Neither company is making any official comments just yet, but we do know Ford and Google have already laid much of the groundwork and the personal connections are there. For example, former Ford and Hyundai executive, John Krafcik, was recently hired by Google to be its CEO of the Self-Driving Car Project. We're also hearing that this venture will be legally separate from Ford, partially because it wants to protect itself from liability concerns. For its part, Google already pledged earlier this year to accept responsibility for crashes in vehicles with its autonomous tech. We'll receive full details earlier next month.