Who Are The Leading Companies in Autonomous Driving in 2017?

Navigant Research just posted their assessment of autonomous vehicle systems companies in 2017.  This report is fascinating for a number of reasons including:

• Ford & GM are way ahead of Tesla
• Uber is near the bottom of the list even though they own Otto
• Hyped companies that make a lot of noise but not a lot of product, like Faraday Future and LeSEE, are not even on the list

Unlike many other evaluations of automated driving systems, Navigant’s includes the companies capacity to actually produce large numbers of autonomous driving cars.

From the Navigant Website:
These players are rated on 10 criteria: vision; go-to market strategy; partners; production strategy; technology; sales, marketing, and distribution; product capability; product quality and reliability; product portfolio; and staying power. Using Navigant Research’s proprietary Leaderboard methodology, companies are profiled, rated, and ranked with the goal of providing an objective assessment of their relative strengths and weaknesses in the global market for automated driving systems.

Key Questions Addressed:

• What are the top 18 companies developing integrated automated driving systems?
• Which of these companies rank the highest in terms of strategy?
• Which of these companies rank the highest in terms of execution?
• Which companies are currently leading the emerging market for automated driving systems?
• Which companies are best positioned to take the lead in automated driving?
• What factors separate the Leaders from the Contenders and Challengers in the market for automated driving systems?

The author is interviewed HERE on TechNews Today and has some interesting insights.

Personally I want an autonomous car although I understand why some people don’t.  In my case, I am getting a bit older and while I still LOVE driving I notice that my vision at night is not as capable as it once was.  Also, I have teenage daughters that are both good drivers, but I would not mind having an extra level of protection that self driving would provide if they are tired or distracted.