Who is better? Between Tesla-Boss Elon Musk (49) and John Krafcik (59), who runs the Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, which emerged from Google’s car project, has developed something that looks like an ego fight.
Tesla’s approach has nothing to do with fully autonomous driving, Krafcik explained in the Interview with manager magazin. “It doesn’t work that way in practice,” he rejected the assumption that Tesla could use the collection of data from the operation of its assistance system called “autopilot” to develop real robotic taxis one day. For this you need hardware such as sensors with which Waymo is way ahead.
Musk didn’t want to let that go and countered, “To my surprise, Tesla has better hardware and software artificial intelligence as Waymo “. Some experts intervened on Krafcik’s side: At last someone with authority said it. Tesla’s strategy will never reach” Level 5 “, that is, fully autonomous driving, says Sam Abuelsamid of the analysis service Guidehouse Research. That’s why Tesla runs Always at the end of the guidehouse rankings for autonomous driving.
Tesla ranked 18th out of 18, Uber out of competition
In fact, Tesla is in the latest ranking, the Guidehouse published in spring 2020, in 18th place – out of 18. In its annual report, the company deleted an earlier wording that it was “continuing to make significant progress in the development of technologies for fully autonomous driving”. Guidehouse interprets this omission in an official document as an admission that this goal is not really in sight. Tesla also shows no ambition in the design of its electric cars to equip them as robotaxis.
Another Silicon Valley company that has long been a pioneer in autonomous driving is not even represented in the ranking: Over. The driving service had expanded aggressively for years, poached top managers from Waymo and Tesla (and had a long legal battle over intellectual theft with Waymo), promised the replacement of its millions of drivers with machines, and often nonchalantly let loose test cars on the streets without themselves to take care of an OK of the authorities.
In 2018, safety deficiencies were revealed by the first fatal accident in Arizona caused by a driverless car. And in December 2020, Uber pulled one Line: The division was sold to the robo-car start-up Aurora under the leadership of Waymo veteran Chris Urmson (44) – another Silicon Valley star that Guidehouse does not find in the ranking for value.
Instead, Tesla has to stand behind start-ups like Navya or May Mobility as well as established automakers BMW about Volvo up to Toyota line up. However, even these do not make it into the top ten. These are:
10th place: Daimler / Bosch
The two Stuttgart groups have been working together for years in the development of self-driving vehicles. In summer 2019 they were able to announce two breakthroughs: the start of a Robotaxi pilot project in San Jose, California and a car park in Stuttgart approved by the German authorities for the use of parking systems without a safety driver – the latter an industry-wide pioneering act. Bosch also develops new radar technology and wants to inaugurate a billion-dollar semiconductor factory in Dresden this year especially for autonomous driving and other future technologies such as smart home.
The ranking appeared before Daimler first his robot partnership with BMW and then the idea of a robot taxi service gave up: “We do not compete in any races that we can no longer win,” said a company spokesman in October, showing the new cost awareness. After all Daimler is now cooperating with Waymo to get the necessary hardware for autonomous truck to develop – also for John Krafcik a dream of the future.
9th place: Zoox
That meanwhile from Amazon adopted The company has received the first official approval for the transport of passengers in autonomous cars in the pioneering market of California – but does not want to use it until the requirement to take safety drivers with them no longer applies. In December 2020, Zoox presented its own toaster-look robot taxi in San Francisco. The experience on the narrow, steep streets of the west coast metropolis is widely regarded as an advantage, even if Waymo boss Krafcik is sees differently.
8th place: Yandex
As the country’s leading internet company, Yandex is the Russian version of Google – and there are parallels to the Google company Waymo in the development of autonomous vehicles. The company has in Russia, Israel and the United States In the meantime, according to their own statements, they have covered more than five million miles of test drives, partly in their own rideshare service, and developed their own lidar system (laser radar), which, according to Guidehouse, is particularly inexpensive.
7th place: Volkswagen
The German group doesn’t necessarily see itself that far ahead. At least repeats the Audi boss Markus Duesmann (51), who is responsible for autonomous driving, used the mantra that you have a lead on Tesla to catch up. But Volkswagen has not only dealt with ford and his robo-car daughter Argo AI allied, which took over Audi’s own development company as the new European headquarters last year. The possible economies of scale make the eyes of the Guidehouse analysts shine. In China the group also starts the first robotaxi service on the largest – and particularly experimental – car market in the world.
6th place: Aptiv / Hyundai
Aptiv emerged from the robo-car development of the US auto supplier Delphi, and its software is used in several projects from various manufacturers around the world. The South Korean automaker Hyundai, which recently became a partner for Apple’s long-awaited and never materialized car project brought into play, founded the joint company Motional with Aptiv in August 2020. The aim is the mass production of cars with autonomy level 4, in which human drivers still have to intervene in exceptional situations. In Nevada there was already approval for tests without a safety driver.
5th place: Intel / Mobileye
Chip manufacturers are already central to conventional car production, like them current supply crisis shows. Chip giant Intel positions itself for autonomous driving, which requires even more and specialized semiconductors. Another hardware component was added in 2017 with the takeover of the Israeli company Mobileye for 15.3 billion dollars. Mobileye is considered to be a leader in the development of so-called vidar systems, a combination of cameras and lidar sensors with which the robo car recognizes its surroundings. In 2020, the approval for test drives also came on German roads.
4th place: Baidu
Baidu is to China what Yandex is to Russia and Google is to practically the rest of the world. The number one search engine links its map material and communication services to the cars in their “Apollo” project. In December 2020, test drives without safety drivers were approved in Beijing.
3rd place: Cruise
The 2016 of General Motors Acquired start-up, which is also financed by Honda, Lyft and Softbank, was able to present its first car model without a steering wheel, pedals and rearview mirror in January 2020: the Cruise Origin, which allegedly could hit the market for less than $ 50,000 – as soon as the market would be ripe for it. Earlier plans to go into commercial operation were repeatedly delayed. Last week participated Microsoft with $ 2 billion in Cruise, which now has a goodwill of $ 30 billion.
2nd place: Ford
Volkswagen’s partner in the robo-car joint venture Argo AI is considered to be the measure of all things for robo-cars in Detroit, the center of the US auto industry. Ford has gained a lot of experience from pilot projects, for example with delivery services from Walmart or the pizza service Domino’s. However, the corona crisis came too early for such services that could help with social distancing. The market launch of the robo-cars developed by Ford was on 2022 postponed.
1st place: Waymo
Waymo boss John Krafcik has to go do not even praise yourself, admiration comes free. The subsidiary of the Alphabet Group, which was once founded as Google Driverless Cars, leads by a large margin not only according to the number of driverless miles (now more than 20 million), but also according to the distance traveled without errors. The commercial operation of the Waymo One robot taxi service began at the end of 2018, and California’s roads are now also free.
Nevertheless, progress is slow at Waymo too. The latest capital round in March 2020 was the largest ever, but Waymo estimated it to be valued at $ 30 billion. The previous hype of up to 200 billion dollars is now a thing of the past. The predictions that the business will be very profitable can only be understood in the long term.