Especially given that there was a link about the self-driving cars right following that link on Google Drive.

My brain just cognitively squished the two of them together and went "whoaa ... they're opening the SDK for the car stuff already !"

I'm disappointed. I thought the same thing.

Not to mention what exactly a "drive" is! In the olden days we knew what physical thing a drive was, and DOS/Windows made sure people knew what a drive letter was. But nowadays who knows or cares. To complete this branding they should use a floppy disk logo, or maybe an Iomega Zip "drive".

Insert obligatory rant about lack of Linux client.

Most PCs still have an optical drive. Everyone I know has a couple of usb thumb drives. I don't think people are struggling with the concept of a "drive".

I see the optical drives (a very geeky name) being called "burners" instead at Dell and many people call the thumb drives "sticks". I'm not saying people don't use the "drive" terminology just that it is on its way out. Laptops have been outselling desktops for several years, and thin/light ones don't have burners. iPads have been a phenomenal success.

Many people already don't distinguish between transient (RAM) and permanent (HD/Flash) memory. (And that distinction is only something that developers should have to care about anyway.)

So while some people may be aware of drives, it will increasingly go the other way.

An optical drive is not necessarily a burner. A burner is capable of writing as well as reading. However, this is borderline irrelevant. Users still know what a CD-ROM drive is. They know what a thumb drive is. Knowing one term (usb stick) doesn't mean they don't know the other (thumb drive). People didn't forget the term "automobile" just because "car" became more popular.

As for laptops, the loss of the optical drive on thin ones is very recent, dating basically to the MacBook Air. iPads are utterly irrelevant. Have people also forgotten what keyboards and mice are since iPads started selling?

You might be right that people will eventually stop using the term drive as its currently used, but right now it's a term with plenty of recognition. And over a longer period of time, rather than the term disappearing, I see no reason why the definition wouldn't simply adapt to refer to online "drives" if physical drives truly died out.

It never occurred to me they'd call their self-driving vehicles "Google Drive". It's the one thing you don't do. Maybe Google Auto, Google Transport, Google Car, or any of a number of names.

Though, I guess there's a good argument that "Google Drive" would be what "Google" does for you... Great, now you're convincing me!

I'm betting on Google Drive Engine.

Maybe they'll call that Google Self-Drive.