On May 7th, Bloomberg completed rankings of 16 companies currently developing self-driving cars. Their rankings were based on opinions from Navigant Research and other experts. Google’s Waymo ranked first on the list, followed by GM and Daimler. Hyundai Motors ranked 12th, while Uber and Tesla were 14th and 15th respectively.
The ‘clear leader,’ Waymo, is leading in the self-driving test records. It has undergone more than 5 million miles of driving tests in 25 US cities. It is also the first self-driving car to release its services to markets at the end of this year. Furthermore, the number of accidents for Waymo cars is on record as being only three in 350,000 miles.
GM, who took second place, was rated as ‘the second-best player with some advantages’. It is planning to introduce its services to markets only at the end of next year, only one year later than Waymo. Bloomberg stated that GM is closely following Waymo and it is also leading in certain areas.
One advantage of GM is its factory in Detroit, which mass-produces self-driving cars in the Chevrolet Bolt production line, lowering the manufacturing cost. It currently costs about 200,000 dollars to build self-driving cars.
Their weakness is speed. GM has not yet tested it at speeds of more than 25 mph.
The third place was given to the ‘pioneer’ Daimler Mercedes Benz. Mercedes is planning to introduce self-driving car service in 2020. Car manufacturers such as Renault-Nissan, Volkswagen, BMW, Toyota, Ford, and Volvo ranked fourth to fifth places.
On the other hand, Hyundai Motors ranked 12th among self-driving technologies among the 16 companies. Hyundai plans to test its autonomous driving system by 2021, and it is expected that it will launch its self-driving car service on the market by 2025.
Uber and Tesla ranked 14th and 15th, respectively. Uber has not yet released the dates for the launch of their self-driving car services. For Tesla, it is scheduled to release its services in 2020.
