RANKED: The 18 companies most likely to get self-driving cars on the road first
Navigant Research
Lyft announced Wednesday that it will team up with Ford on self-driving cars, the latest addition to a growing list of partners.
The news shows how rapidly the self-driving-car space is shaping up. With so many players in the space, companies are exploring new tactics to get their product to market first.
We decided to take a step back and see where each company stands in the race to make robot cars a reality.
Navigant Research assessed all the self-driving-car players and released a leadership grid in April showing who is most poised to bring Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 self-driving cars to market in the next decade.
Companies on the Leadership Grid were assessed on 10 criteria: vision; go-to-market strategy; partners; production strategy; technology; product capability; sales, marketing & distribution; product quality and reliability; product portfolio; staying power. The companies were then given an overall score out of 100 based on their performance in each category.
The leadership is bound to change next year as companies work to bolster their position in the space, but scroll down to see the top contenders this year:
18. Baidu
Baidu, a Chinese internet company, has been publicly testing its self-driving-car technology since 2015.
The company allowed members of the public to take rides in its fleet of electric, autonomous cars for the first time in Nov. 2016, but the trial only lasted a week. The company has an autonomous testing permit in California and an office in Sunnyvale.
Baidu in September launched a $1.5 billion fund dedicated to autonomous-car development. The Beijing-based company plans to produce a limited number of autonomous vehicles for a shared shuttle service in 2018 and to mass produce self-driving cars in 2021.
Navigant Research gave Baidu an overall score of 47.1 out of a possible 100, noting that the company ended its partnership with BMW in November of last year.
17. nuTonomy
NuTonomy, a Boston-based startup spun out of MIT in 2013, has been quietly making big moves in the self-driving-car space.
In August 2016, nuTonomy became the first company to launch a fleet of self-driving taxis under a pilot program in Singapore. The startup has since partnered with Lyft to launch a pilot in Boston before the end of this year.
NuTonomy has raised $20 million in venture funding through 2016. Investors include the government of Singapore and Fontinalis Partners, a venture fund founded Bill Ford, the executive chairman of Ford.
Navigant Research gave nuTonomy an overall score of 51.6 out of a possible 100.
16. Uber
Despite drawing a lot of attention when it launched its self-driving-car pilot in Pittsburgh last September, Uber is relatively low on Navigant's list.
Uber set up shop in Pittsburgh after poaching several robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon in May 2015. After launching its Pittsburgh trial in September, Uber now also runs one in Arizona.
In December, Uber got into a public dispute with the California DMV after launching a self-driving-car pilot in San Francisco without first obtaining an autonomous vehicles testing permit. Uber left California for Arizona after the DMV revoked registration of its 16 self-driving Volvo XC90s.
In January, Uber formed a partnership with Daimler. "This could be a hedge by Uber in the event that its in-house technology development does not work out — or if it proves to be too
expensive to operate its own fleet of vehicles," Navigant wrote in its report.
Waymo is suing Uber, claiming the ride-hailing service stole the intellectual property for its lidar system.
Navigant Research gave Uber an overall score of 54.5 out of a possible 100.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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