This year's CES served as the launch pad for companies that are venturing into self-driving car technology. For an event focused on consumer electronics, autonomous vehicles took the spotlight from Faraday Future's FF 91 to Nvidia's BB8. The stakeholders range from major manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai to Internet giants Microsoft and Google.

Autonomous vehicles are one of the promising technologies unveiled at CES 2017. Driverless cars are now a reality, thanks to advances in sensors, artificial intelligence, and satellite technology. According to Nasdaq, there will be 10 million self-driving cars on the road by 2019. That number is very lucrative for the companies involved.

A Business Insider report reveals the number of companies racing to build self-driving cars in the next five years. These companies include traditional automakers, Silicon Valley startups, and tech giants. They have one goal in mind - to deploy a self-driving car by 2021.

One of the major players in the self-driving car space is Tesla Motors Inc. The Elon Musk company aims to have a full self-driving car ready by 2018. It is currently developing the Model S, Model X, and future Model 3, which will be fully autonomous. The company is still waiting for regulatory approval for its future fleet of autonomous vehicles.

Uber is another company that is moving into the self-driving territory. The online transportation network company had a pilot last September Pittsburgh wherein people can take a ride in its Ford Fusion cars equipped with the company's self-driving technology. Uber partnered with Volvo to develop driverless cars.

Tech giant Google is also diversifying its interests in autonomous vehicles. It created an independent company called Waymo that will act as its self-driving car unit. Google is collaborating with Fiat Chrysler to launch a robot taxi service by the end of 2017.

Also developing driverless technologies are BMW, Toyota, Volvo, Nissan, Ford, Baidu, Nvidia, and Honda. They are all committed to having cars that are completely driverless by 2020.

The video below features NVIDIA’s own self-driving car, affectionately known as BB8, which debuted at CES 2017. Share your thoughts on the article in the comment section.

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