Self-Driving Cars: Who’s Winning and Why?
Self-driving cars promise to make driving a far safer activity, and they’ll let occupants use their transportation time for leisure or work tasks.
The first company to break through the last remaining barriers to self-driving vehicles stands to benefit tremendously, but who’s currently winning? Here are a few of the companies leading the way and some factors that will decide which one wins.
Although Google is often credited with advances in self-driving cars, the project is being run by Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Name issues aside, Waymo is widely viewed as the current leader in developing self-driving cars, and for good reason. Waymo doesn’t have plans to develop full cars alone. The company is instead focused on the sensors and software that can be adopted to various driving platforms, and they recently agreed to purchase thousands of Chrysler Pacifica minivans to use with their existing technology.
Indicative of Waymo’s perceived advantages, however, is that its vehicles are already on the road in large numbers, albeit with a human behind the wheel in case intervention is necessary. In the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area, a select group of riders are already taking Waymo rides in a program that has generated surprisingly little fanfare. Data gathered from the Waymo One service is further cementing Waymo’s advantages in terms of data and real-world experience, and its closest competitors might struggle to close the gap. If car manufacturers choose to partner with Waymo instead of developing their own self-driving platforms, the technology may become the de facto standard for future vehicles.
Strong brand recognition has made Tesla one of the most famous car manufacturers despite the company’s fairly low production numbers and relatively high vehicle prices. While the company’s cars are best know for running exclusively on batteries, the company is also hoping to leapfrog its competitors and become the first to offer customers autonomous driving. Their aim to be first may produce some advantages over competitors, but there are some potential drawbacks to Tesla’s plan.
Tesla’s vehicles can already do a considerable amount of driving on their own. Although Tesla vehicles perform admirably when self-piloting, the company has eschewed using advanced technologies and instead focused its efforts on using standard camera to visualize the road and its surroundings. While these standard camera are fairly inexpensive and can provide valuable information, they’re limited compared to the laser-based systems used on other types of self-driving vehicles. Much like human vision, standard cameras are limited by rain and other environmental factors, and they can’t detect distance accurately. The company promises to offer more self-driving features on its cars through software updates, but it’s unclear if they’ll be able to remain competitive without adopting new technologies. Still, purchases from the brand’s faithful will fuel enthusiasm for the automaker.
Not content to focus exclusively on its GPUs, chip-maker Nvidia is making a major move at developing self-driving hardware.
