A new report from Navigant Research has determined Waymo, Ford Autonomous Vehicles, Cruise, and Baidu as the leading market players when it comes to developing automated driving systems.
The report looked at the strategy and executions of 18 companies and found that the four companies outpaced their competitors in developing viable business models for commercializing automated driving (AD).
The companies were 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. The report noted that 2019 was a difficult year in the AD industry, with several companies going out of business and many larger players in the industry consolidating their efforts.
“These four companies are already well along in terms of the development of the core AD systems technology and have accumulated several years of real-world development and validation,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. “They have also supplemented their technological capabilities with prominent plans to deploy automation for automated mobility services, including in-house development of such services.”
According to the report, the timelines for large-scale deployments of AD technology are moving closer to the mid-2020s. Delays will ensure a premature launch does not poison public and regulatory sentiment towards AD, the report said. The report also predicted further industry consolidation over the next several years.