16 Main Global Autonomous Driving Companies

Analysts expect self-driving cars to mature rapidly in the next decade.

As potential self-driving forces form alliances, investor bets have become simpler.

Facts have proved that self-driving cars are not much different from human driving: it takes about 16 years to prepare for the road (the United States can take a driver's license at the age of 16).

In 2004, at the Autonomous Driving Challenge of the US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a team of self-driving cars that took shape initially formed the Mojave Desert, but eventually, no team completed the planned route. Today, autonomous driving has been iteratively upgraded, but it still has not really entered the homes of ordinary people.

The true deployment of autonomous driving is much longer than originally promised. Analysts expect self-driving cars to mature rapidly in the next decade.

At the same time, new coronaviruses have increased the use of "robots" while also closing laboratories and factories that are improving these technologies. For groceries or medicines, now is the best time to transport through this "algorithm on wheels". Some recent milestone plans will be postponed, and the economic impact of the epidemic will undoubtedly force some companies to abandon their self-driving "skunk factories."

Larry Burns, a former GM executive, likens a self-driving race to a marathon. The entire journey is about 15 miles, and the epidemic is like a mountain lying in the field. "Cliff may be a better analogy," Burns said.

"The strongest contestants are still able to overcome it. Maybe it will take them longer, but they may accelerate on the other side of the cliff." Burns also collaborated with Christopher Shulgan ) Co-authored a book on autonomous driving, called "Automation: The emergence of driverless cars and how to reshape our world" (Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car--And How It Will Reshape Our World).

In fact, long before the social distance of the epidemic took place, autonomous driving engineers were quietly adjusting their expectations and delaying the launch of autonomous driving. In early 2018, GM had promised to release a self-driving taxi team in San Francisco by 2020. In January of this year, GM launched a new self-driving car for shared travel, but since the company announced the delay of the release, it has not clearly finalized the "autonomous driving rental" time to market.

Daimler also postponed its commitment to bring 10,000 self-driving taxis to the road by 2021. Tesla also promised that there will be 1 million "self-driving taxis" on the road this year. At present, this electric car has not given up this vision.

A recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that several companies developing autonomous driving technology have set a goal of initial deployment by 2021, but that was before the epidemic swept the world. Currently, the only platform that uses fully autonomous vehicles to transport passengers is Waymo, which is also regarded as the industry leader.

Facts have proved that extreme weather is a very difficult problem. At this time, other road users (such as pedestrians, drivers, cyclists, etc.) may do some unpredictable things. The stagnation in the development of autonomous driving has made the world's autonomous driving experts humble. They are showing a stronger willingness to form teams and work together.

Today, the "treasure hunt game" in the field of autonomous driving is dominated by joint ventures. In some cases, cooperation between technology companies and automakers is funded by institutional investors.

"Everyone has this magnificent vision," Silberg said.

"But everyone agrees that the strategy of fighting alone is unwise. For some of them, you can think of this investment as a put option for the future of autonomous driving."

Self-driving cars have already been paid to operate in some places, such as Sunny Phoenix, Lyft users can call Waymo's MPV; in Texas, Kroger uses Nuro's windowless driverless pod car Transportation of groceries; in Florida, Voyage provides passenger transportation to seniors in one of the US retirement communities.

Silberg refers to these places as "autonomous islands." These relatively stable areas have been thoroughly scanned, drawn, and stress-tested by artificial intelligence algorithms. He estimates that in the next two years, similar areas will start to emerge everywhere.

As potential self-driving forces form alliances, investor bets have become simpler. Since 2009, some companies developing self-driving cars have disclosed at least $14 billion in investment. Essentially, high-risk ventures scattered among dozens of startups have become something similar to private capital: behind some selected projects, a lot of money is used to create Vaughan.

Nuro received a $1 billion investment from SoftBank Group, which said the funds invested in the field of autonomous driving bring a vital sense of optimism. "This will not change our plan or mission, but it will give our partners a lot of confidence and make them believe that we will continue to exist." Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson (Dave Ferguson) said. "This gives us a chance to really try."

However, the new crown epidemic brought a devastating knockout game to this field. The most likely exits are those smaller startups with insufficient capital or those large companies that are in a secondary position compared to auto manufacturing autonomous driving technology. Gardner analyst Mike Ramsey pointed out that as companies enter survival mode, non-critical expenses will be cut relentlessly.

Nonetheless, in the past month, as the huge share of the retail market from groceries to gourmet food has shifted online, the economics of transportation costs have greatly improved. In Silberg's words, "the epidemic has widened and accelerated the use of autonomous driving."

Burns, a former GM executive, believes that safe and ubiquitous self-driving cars may reduce freight costs by at least half. This is also the reason why Softbank, Kleiner Perkins, and other companies are betting on the autonomous driving market, which is also a micro-economy that automakers cannot ignore.

In the competition in the field of autonomous vehicles, the following 16 competitors can be divided into three groups. The first faction is an industry leader, including Waymo, Cruise, Argo, Aurora, and Amberford. The second faction is regional forces, including Baidu, BMW, Daimler, Nuro, Toyota, Uber, and Volvo. The third faction is unique and does not take the usual path, such as Nissan, Pony Zhixing, Tesla, and Zoox.

Next, let's look at the development status of these companies in terms of the investment amount, mileage, and deployment of vehicles.

1. Waymo

To make self-driving cars no longer just a new thing, it requires a lot of experience or a lot of money.

The predecessor of this Alphabet subsidiary is Google's "Mystery Project" 11 years ago, and it is fully funded from start to finish.

Today, if you want to spend money on a real self-driving car, there is only one place in the United States: the suburbs of Phoenix. There, several Chrysler Pacifica cars from Waymo will carry passengers without a safe driver.

The general consensus in the industry is that, in view of the record set by Waymo, it is still one year or more ahead of other competitors in the industry.

In early March of this year, the company announced that it had raised the first capital from external investors-$2.3 billion. Investors include venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (Andreessen Horowitz) and the largest car dealer in the United States2 AutoNation.

Shortly before the aforementioned investment was announced, Waymo announced that its self-driving cars had exceeded 20 million miles on public roads, half of which were driven in more than a year.

On May 12, the self-driving company announced that it had received an investment of $750 million. "The new coronavirus has highlighted the ability of fully autonomous driving technology to provide safe and hygienic personal travel and freight services." Waymo CEO John Krafcik wrote in a post announcing the investment agreement.

Waymo has set many records. In early December 2019, the self-driving taxi service Waymo One launched more than 100,000 rides in the first year of the pilot project in Arizona; in July 2019, these self-driving taxis were connected to Lyft’s Phoenix network, The number of passengers far exceeded the previous 1,000 or so test subjects; in October 2018, Waymo obtained a permit from California to operate autonomous vehicles without a safety officer, which is the first such certification.

From the beginning, simulation has been Waymo's priority. The original goal was to build a realistic simulator, called Carcraft, whose algorithm can continuously simulate potentially dangerous situations without causing danger to pedestrians or travelers. In November last year, Waymo announced the acquisition of British company Latent Logic, which focuses on the simulation of the behavior of motor vehicle drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. The company, separated from the Department of Computer Science at Oxford University, uses so-called imitation learning to replicate behaviors, which helps autonomous vehicles interact with humans more safely.

Waymo is not bundled with any auto supplier alone. Waymo reorganized an old factory in Detroit, where it installed autopilot nervous systems for FCA's thousands of MPVs and Jaguar SUVs.

It does not just stick to a certain business model. In the fall of 2019, Waymo CEO Kravsik discussed with reporters the company's large truck autopilot system, saying that the arrival of self-driving trucks may be faster than the self-driving rental service.

In Atlanta, Waymo is testing 18-wheel trucks for self-driving commercial applications. These cars are produced by Paccar's Peterbilt. These self-driving trucks have also been tested on public roads in California and closed race tracks in Michigan.

Currently, Waymo seems to have enough funds to stick to Kravsik’s motto: “We are not making cars, we are making drivers.”

3. Cruise

In 2016, General Motors acquired Cruise Automation, which turned a self-driving laggard into a leader.

The automaker’s engineers tried to figure out how to make a self-driving car complete complex turns. At this time, they found that Cruise was modifying the automatic A4 for its founder Kyle Vogt. More progress has been made in driving. GM paid more than $1 billion for the acquisition of Cruise, and since then began to develop self-driving electric vehicles.

Today, Cruise has raised more than $9 billion in funding from parent company General Motors, partner Honda, SoftBank Vision Fund and T. Rowe Price, and plans to launch an autonomous driving taxi service in San Francisco. But GM has remained silent about when the service will be launched because the company failed to achieve its expected target in December 2019.

During the preparation phase, Cruise’s hundreds of self-driving cars will be tested in San Francisco. The original founder, Vogt, is now the company's chief technology officer. He believes that if self-driving cars can drive normally in San Francisco, they can control any driving method.

The self-driving cars currently used by this self-driving subsidiary are modified versions of the Chevrolet Bolt electric cars, and they will also be used for self-driving travel services in the general plan. GM and Honda have developed Origin, a car designed for autonomous driving. It is not a five-seater car-like Bolt, but more like a bus, which can maximize the space, but can also be used in the dense urban streets of Tokyo.

For Cruise, the biggest challenge is to let technology completely overcome all the details of real driving. Dan Ammann, Cruise CEO who used to be president of General Motors, called autonomous driving the "lunar landing plan" of this generation. However, GM has missed a deadline. The longer the time, the more competition Cruise may face when operating its autonomous driving service. In the end, the company still needs to generate revenue. In May this year, the self-driving company laid off nearly 8% of its employees.

4. Argo AI

In July 2019, Volkswagen and Ford chose to work together to develop self-driving cars and electric vehicles, and both of them were among the leaders of autonomous vehicles. Volkswagen agreed to invest $2.6 billion in Forgo’s self-driving partner Argo AI, bringing the self-driving startup’s valuation to $7 billion. The world’s largest automaker, Volkswagen, and the world’s sixth-largest automaker, Ford, have created an autonomous driving giant.

Sam Abuelsamid, the principal analyst at Navigant Research, said that Volkswagen could have cooperated with several autonomous driving companies. "They are willing to vote for Argo, they voted for this company and they believe this company is on the right track."

The public contributes more than funds. In addition to $1 billion in cash, the German automaker has also integrated its Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) division into Argo's operations. This adds 200 engineers to Argo, and the total number of employees exceeds 900. Argo also added a European headquarters in Munich.

Argo is currently run by CEO Bryan Salesky, who was one of the leaders of the Google driverless car project (now Waymo) and is also responsible for the operation of former Uber driverless project founder Pete ? Pete Rander.

Seski said he plans to start testing autonomous vehicles in Europe as early as this year. In the United States, Argo has started pilot projects for autonomous taxis and autonomous driving in Miami, Washington, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Austin, Texas, and Palo Alto, California.

Ford also recently postponed plans to promote autonomous driving rental and autonomous driving delivery in multiple cities in the United States for one year, until 2022. The company said it needs more time to assess the impact of the epidemic on consumers' attitudes toward autonomous driving and car-sharing.

Analyst Absamid said that the cash received from the public and the additional resources from AID gave Argo more room for development. The scale of autonomous driving takes much longer than everyone thought two years ago, which means that there must be enough cash to maintain operations until it can generate enough revenue to become a self-sufficient enterprise.

5. Aurora

Aurora is probably best known for its star lineup against the backdrop of a group of academic autonomous driving engineers.

The company's CEO Chris Urmson (Chris Urmson) was responsible for the launch of the Alphabet self-driving project; co-founder Sterling Anderson (Steerling Anderson) once led the Tesla team to develop Autopilot; Chief Technology Officer Drew ? Drew Bagnell, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, helped Uber create an autonomous driving center in Pittsburgh. The three-year-old startup also received investments from some well-known companies, including Hyundai Motor, Amazon, and Sequoia Capital.

The company is testing its autonomous driving software on cars from several automakers, including Hyundai and FCA. In 2018, the company rejected Volkswagen's acquisition proposal and later canceled its partnership with Volkswagen in order to continue to maintain cooperation with multiple car manufacturers.

The founders of Aurora firmly believe that self-driving taxis will be a viable business model, but they are also reducing losses by focusing on logistics and freight transportation. Because of this, it received investment from Amazon, and the startup's cooperation with FCA also focused on commercial vehicles.

The company did not publish the mileage of self-driving cars like other competitors, and it also scoffed at driving mileage as a measure of progress. They are focused on extracting data from human driving habits and using these data to simulate extreme or difficult situations.

Aurora said that its business model is based on independent technology platforms (software, hardware, and data services) and can be licensed for any car, not customized for individual brands. This allows it to move quickly and work with multiple partners (from cars to logistics companies) to expand its scale.

6. Amberford

Amberford, a spin-off from Delphi, seems to be one of the few successful suppliers who has successfully transformed into a true self-driving car player.

After a series of technology company mergers, the autonomous driving system developed in cooperation with Intel achieved technical integration. The largest of these is the self-driving startup Nutonomy, which has been testing autonomous vehicles at urban road speeds in Boston and Singapore. Glen De Vos, chief technology officer of Aberford, said that since the acquisition of the company in late 2017, the team’s number of employees in Boston, Singapore, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, and Shanghai has grown from about 120 Increased to more than 700 people.

At the end of 2019, Aberford formed a 50% joint venture with Hyundai Motors for all of these assets. The two companies said they expect to have an autonomous driving platform that can be put into production by 2022. One of the goals is the self-driving taxi team: Ampford has been studying the commercialization of autonomous driving technology by joining Lyft's car-hailing network in Las Vegas.

Baidu

Six years ago, Baidu began to develop autonomous driving software systems. Today, it has established so-called "ecological partnerships" with 156 automakers and suppliers, including Ford, Daimler, BMW, BAIC Group, and BYD. The company also invested in several companies, including sensor manufacturers Velodyne, Hesai Technology, and Weimar.

The company has more than 300 L4 test vehicles in 23 cities and has more than 3 million kilometers of urban road test mileage, ranking first among China's autonomous driving developers. As the first company to obtain government road test permits, Baidu has the most test permits in China. The company also received the highest level of self-driving test license issued by China, allowing its self-driving vehicles to operate under complex conditions, including urban roads, tunnels, school areas, etc.

Baidu also deployed the Apo self-driving car developed in cooperation with FAW in Changsha, Hunan. Local residents can use the smart applet Dutaxi in Baidu Maps or Baidu App to ride autonomous vehicles for free. The fleet has a total of 45 self-driving cars. These self-driving cars operate in an area of 130 square kilometers in Changsha, covering residential areas and industrial/commercial areas.

Baidu did not disclose its actual investment in the development of self-driving cars, but a spokesperson said the next step would be to focus on "industrialization", including the development of its operating system. Li Zhenyu, vice president and general manager of Baidu Intelligent Driving Group, said at CES 2019 that 2020 will be the first year of Apollo's commercialization.

7. BMW

BMW is fully involved in the cooperation of autonomous vehicles. Since 2017, the Munich-based automaker has been working with FCA, Intel, and Mobileye to develop the L3 model. The first vehicles will be iNEXT flagship SUVs that will appear on the street in 2021.

In addition, BMW also collaborated with its main competitor Daimler to develop a more advanced L4 sedan, which can be fully autonomous and does not require the owner to supervise the vehicle at all times. The two companies announced the establishment of a partnership in July 2019 and stated that they will be "long-term" and "strategic."

BMW and Daimler are likely to deepen their relationship. The two companies have already cooperated in car-sharing and digital products, and may eventually become cooperation for autonomous taxis. But both companies declined to speculate what it would be. At present, BMW's self-driving fleet consists of 7 series of test cars, which can be driven on the west coast of the United States, Germany, Israel, and China.

8. Daimler

Daimler-owned Mercedes-Benz deepened its cooperation with BMW last year and joined the joint operation to develop autonomous vehicles. Together with BMW, it will work on driver assistance systems, automatic parking, and L4 autonomous driving technology for highways. Both manufacturers describe this effort as "long-term strategic cooperation," which aims to provide customers with the most advanced technology by 2025.

The company and BMW are considering expanding the scope of cooperation to include urban autonomous driving-which is also the most challenging ultimate goal in autonomous driving technology because this transportation mode is more complicated and it is almost impossible to predict or calculate. Both companies said that other manufacturers or technology companies could join the partnership.

The direction of the cooperation between Daimler and Bosch is mainly to realize L4 and L5 autonomous driving on urban roads. The development work includes a pilot test project of an autonomous driving car-hailing service in San Jose, California.

9. Nuro

Nuro, which launched autonomous driving four years ago, started late in this race and has little ambition. It does not want to carry people, only pizza and groceries.

In fact, almost half of private car travels are spent on simple chores. The company believes that if its self-driving cars can complete some of these tasks without human involvement, the demand will be great. Such an oven-shaped self-driving car can go a little further, giving priority to safety over speed.

This assertion comes from Duro Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, co-founders of Nuro. So they quickly reached an agreement with grocer Kroger to transport groceries in Phoenix and Domino's pizza in Houston.

"Basically, we set up a local delivery service," Ferguson said.

With a viable business model and weird-looking cars, Nuro gained the favor of Softbank last year and received an investment of about $940 million.

Ferguson said that SoftBank’s funds will not have much impact on the company’s technology and timetable, but it gives potential partners confidence that Nuro can continue to move forward for a period of time and also helps recruit and Retain Talent.

"Our recruitment threshold is ridiculously high," Ferguson said. "Don't tell SoftBank about this, but if we fail, we won't be too frustrated because we burned $1 billion, formed one of the best teams in the field, and squandered talent efficiently."

10. Toyota

Toyota recently invested US$400 million in Pony Zhixing to help the latter accelerate the development of autonomous driving rentals.

Zhima Zhixing currently operates dozens of self-driving cars in the Nansha District of Guangzhou for employees to use. The company also partnered with Hyundai Motor and Via Transportation to provide limited self-driving rental services to the public in Irvine, California. Some of the company's competitors, such as WeRide, which is supported by Baidu, have also provided public-facing self-driving rental services in China.

In August 2019, Toyota for the first time established a partnership with Pony Zhixing. The Japanese automaker is becoming one of the major investors in the development of autonomous vehicles and shared mobility services. The company's total investment in companies such as Uber, Monet Technologies, and Didi Chuxing exceeds US$4 billion.

Toyota’s investment in Zhima Zhixing can help the latter strengthen its autonomous driving test in China, and also allow Toyota to occupy a more advantageous position in China’s future autonomous driving market.

11. Uber

In the future of driverless driving, ride-hailing companies such as Uber will undoubtedly be the biggest beneficiaries. After all, nearly three-quarters of Uber's fare is now for human drivers, including 10% of the income used to guarantee a certain income threshold and encourage them to travel more. Now, Uber not only transports passengers but also transports food and goods, making autonomous driving more useful.

Since the creation of the Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) about 5 years ago, Uber has been working hard to build a pilot project for autonomous driving. At that time, it directly selected 40 engineers from Carnegie Mellon University whose technical level was at or above the level of the DARPA Autonomous Driving Challenge.

Uber's "Skunk Factory" used to have about 1,000 employees, and hundreds of its cars traveled back and forth between Arizona, Colorado, and Pittsburgh. After the fatal accident in March 2018, Uber considered this closed mysterious laboratory.

However, in April of the same year, it received a $500 million investment from Toyota and plans to apply autonomous driving technology to the Toyota Sienna MPV. In 2019, just a few weeks before the IPO, Uber raised another $1 billion in funding from Toyota, Denso, and SoftBank Vision Funds for its ATG division.

Uber did not disclose the timetable for the release of autonomous driving. It believes that there will be a long period of "hybrid autonomous driving", during which self-driving cars will slowly occupy the safest and most well-lit routes.

In the prospectus submitted by Uber, "accident" appeared 9 times; the term "autonomous driving" appeared 117 times.

12. Volvo

Volvo builds its own car brand around safety, saying that autonomous driving is also a natural extension of that direction. Like other automakers, as the difficulty and cost of solving autonomous driving problems become clearer, solutions are constantly evolving.

The Swedish automaker transferred its autonomous driving business to Zenuity in 2017, a joint venture with supplier Autoliv, hoping to sell autonomous driving software to other automakers. In April 2020, Volvo terminated this partnership and transferred all research and development of self-driving cars to the inside of the company to become an independent company. Veoneer, a subsidiary of Autoliv, sells more limited security features.

By 2022, Volvo will start producing cars equipped with the Highway Pilot system. The technology allows the driver's hands and eyes to be removed from the steering wheel without the need to supervise the car. However, if the driver does not respond to the signal of the need to take over again, the car will stop on the roadside. The Swedish car manufacturer originally planned to launch it in 2021, but it was postponed for a year in order to add more autonomous driving technology to this new car architecture called SPA 2.

Volvo is not optimistic about the self-driving rental project as a profitable method of autonomous driving technology.

Henrik Green, the company's chief technology officer, said: "Our goal is to serve our main users-private car owners. With the high-speed pilot function, we can truly enhance the value of private car owners' daily commute For many people, this is a huge change in the use of cars."

It is working with partners to reduce risk, the most notable of which is Uber. In the fatal accident in March 2018, Uber used Volvo cars, but the latter's security system was shut down. As part of the cooperation agreement, Volvo will provide Uber with vehicles suitable for autonomous driving software. In June 2019, the company delivered the first mass-produced optimized XC90 SUV to Uber.

13. Nissan

Nissan released a new version of the Skyline Coupe last July, using the company's most advanced self-driving technology and using the same design elements as the GT-R Coupe. It is not a fully self-driving car. According to the SAE self-driving rating, it is between L2 and L3.

On highways, this type of car allows drivers to remove their hands from the steering wheel when connected to the internet. The previous model released in 2013 was sold with the Infiniti Logo in the Japanese market, but some fans miss the classic Nissan hood trim.

In September 2019, the automaker reported an order volume of 1,760 units, with prices ranging from US$41,000 to US$58,000. Outside the Japanese market, the skyline is close to the Infiniti Q50 and can compete with Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

14. Pony Zhixing

In 2016, Xiaoma Zhixing was co-founded by Peng Jun, the former chief architect of Baidu and the champion of TopCoder China and Lou Tiancheng, the champion of Google Global Programming Challenge.

This company has achieved good results in the DMV report for autonomous driving in California. According to a report released in 2019, Pony Ma's self-driving cars only require manual intervention every 6,476 miles, which is a significant improvement from 205.3 miles in 2018. In 2019, the company also significantly increased its test mileage, achieving 174,845 miles of autonomous driving on California’s public roads, second only to Waymo and Cruise.

Its main investors include Toyota, Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital, and Fidelity's Eight Roads. So far, the company has raised nearly US$800 million in the capital, with a valuation of US$3 billion, including Toyota’s US$400 million investment announced in February.

Peng Jun said in an open letter in November 2019 that the company's driving mileage has exceeded 1 million kilometers. As of April 2020, Xiaoma Zhixing's mileage has reached 2 million kilometers.

Pony Ma has two pilot sites in California and has also launched a pilot service in Irvine City to provide self-driving taxi services to the public. In response to the epidemic, Xiaoma Zhixing cooperated with Los Angeles-based e-commerce website Yamibuy in March to deliver parcels and groceries in Irvine City.

In December 2018, it was also the first to launch a self-driving taxi fleet and service in Guangzhou. The company said at the time that it would travel more than 100,000 times worldwide in the next year.

15. Tesla

In October 2015, Tesla combined the camera, ultrasonic sensor, and radar to launch Autopilot, Tesla's driver assistance system.

Tesla posted on the official website at the time that although the real self-driving car will take a few years, the function of Tesla Autopilot is similar to the system used by pilots when the weather is sunny. The driver is still responsible for the car and ultimately controls the car.

After four and a half years, Tesla users in the United States and around the world are using Autopilot every day, and many people are convinced of this technology. So far, users have used the system to drive more than 1 billion miles, providing the company with valuable data to help it better understand accidents.

In Tesla’s earnings conference call last October, Musk talked about the value of having a “large fleet”. He said that if the regulatory agency approves, the next step is fully autonomous driving, and the company is still working on it.

Musk initially promised to show autonomous driving across the United States by the end of 2017. But this date has been missed and becomes a thing of the past, like many promises in this industry. In August 2018, he stated that the company could conduct a cross-country trip on a specific route, but this would be "a bit like a loophole in the system."

In the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), there were at least three fatal accidents involving Autopilot, which caused people's attention to technology. Victims include Josh Brown driving the Model S in Florida in May 2016, Walter Huang driving the Model X in California in March 2018, and driving in Florida in March 2019 Jeremy Banner of Model 3. Both Huang and Banner’s family have sued Tesla, and the NTSB’s findings are still inconclusive.

In May 2019, Musk said in a conference call with investors that autonomous driving technology is "revolutionary" for Tesla, is a fundamental driving force, and is the key to "market value of 500 billion US dollars." At the same time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is still investigating more than a dozen accidents involving Autopilot.

16. Zoox

The development of autonomous vehicles requires huge investments, which prompts most companies to find partners to bring cash, technology, or factories to the joint venture.

Zoox is different. The five-year-old company has raised $1 billion and is testing its autonomous driving software with 30 modified Toyota Highlander SUVs.

Over the past year, Zoox has reorganized its management team. In 2018, co-founder Tim Kentley-Klay left the company angrily. In January 2019, the company hired former Intel executive Aicha Evans (Aicha Evans) and co-founder and chief technology officer Jesse Levinson (Jesse Levinson) to jointly manage the company. With the stability of management, Zoox raised $200 million in October.

This is a good start, but in the long run, the company needs more capital. Zoox is building its own self-driving cars from scratch. It plans to show self-driving cars in San Francisco and Nevada this year, and will soon be commercialized.

Levinson was a winning team member of Stanford University's 2007 DARPA City Challenge, and Evans was an experienced professional manager. The demand for funds may eventually prompt Zoox to find a partner, and may even require a buyer. In May this year, The Information reported that the company was looking for buyers.