According to a recent report on self-driving industry leaders, Ford tops the list beating out pioneers such as Uber and Tesla. The former never even made it to the top ten.
Detroit car manufacturer outranks Tesla, Uber, and Waymo on self-driving technology. Although electric car manufacturer Tesla ranked higher in terms of market value, Ford Motor Company made the top of the list of companies currently in the race of manufacturing self-driving technology, way past industry fire starters Uber and Waymo. Navigant Research came up with a list comprising of 18 companies all in all.
A blog post following the report from Navigant Research explained that the American car manufacturer took the top spot because of its ability to act on a "fully realized strategy" which means having control over car manufacturing. The same reason goes for traditional car manufacturers General Motors, Renault-Nissan Alliance, Daimler, and Volkswagen all of whom are part of the top five.
Research firm Navigant Research based their study on 10 criteria which include strategy, development, manufacturing, core tech, and staying power. Also included is manufacturing capability.
Ford has been made the most noise among traditional car manufacturers with regard to self-driving cars as of late. The American company has promised to launch a fleet of fully autonomous vehicles ready for mass production in four years. That goal seems to be very much possible with its US$1 billion investment in fledgling autonomous car development startup Argo AI in February of this year.
Waymo came in as part of the top ten but scored lower in terms of production strategy and marketing plans despite being in the industry for eight years running. Tesla and Uber, on the other hand, are part of the list's lower tiers with the former's score affected by a production strategy and technology that is just not good enough.
In summary, Navigant Research makes it clear that what matters most in its report is traditional vehicle production. It is, however, still very early and this list will see changes in players as the years go by.
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