How many independent, well-funded driverless car companies are there now? How to set up a company to compete for the market According to foreign media reports, at some point in the future, children sitting in the car may ask their parents: What kind of car was a long time ago? What they are talking about is the current scenario. Most people still use the steering wheel and pedals to control the car.
Of course, there is still a long way to go to realize the goal of a “fully automatic driverless carâ€, but many companies have been working hard to build such a future.
However, changing the face of traffic is a very expensive business and usually requires companies or a large amount of venture capital support to help achieve this ambitious goal. So, how many independent, well-funded driverless car companies are there now? In short, it's not as much as you think.
By browsing the independent companies in the "automobile" category of the corporate database company Crunchbase, these companies have already raised $50 million or more in venture capital.
After the screening, we found that most of these companies can be grouped into two camps: 1) The company dedicated to the development of sensor technology, the sensor is an integral part of any unmanned system; 2) Full-stack hardware And software companies that integrate sensors, machine learning software models, and control mechanics into unmanned systems.
Full-stack driverless car company
Let's begin with a full-stack driverless car company. The following table shows the independent full-stack driverless car companies currently operating in the market, as well as their focus areas, headquarters locations, and total venture financing.
Please note that there are also differences in the company focus areas listed above. In general, some companies are focused on building more general technology platforms, perhaps for the purpose of selling or licensing them to other car manufacturers in the future, while other companies not only want to own driverless car technologies, but also hope to deploy them. In on-demand taxi and other transport service fleets.
Manufacturing the eyes and ears of unmanned vehicles
In terms of sensors, there is also a trend. Companies in this field are obviously more focused on a certain focus area. You can see the differences in the following table:
In the area of ​​sensing, many well-funded startups are developing LiDAR technology, which is basically creating "deep perception eyes" for driverless car systems. For example, CYNGN integrates many different sensors (including lidar) into hardware arrays and software tools, an important hub for mobile operating system developers, formerly known as Cyanogen.
These sensor companies are also working on other issues, including the Nauto's smart camera, which collects location data, detects distracted driving or Autotalks' Dsrc technology, which is used for vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
Unlike the aforementioned full-stack suppliers, many sensor companies have already established supply relationships with the automotive industry.
For example, QuanergySystems has attracted auto parts maker Delphi, luxury automakers Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Renault-Nissan and others. As a partner and investor. Innoviz provided solid-state lidar technology to BMW.
Although radars (even laser radars) are now becoming obsolete, sensors are still innovating. Israel’s OryxVision’s technology for developing solid-state depth sensing solutions for driverless vehicles shows that its “coherent optical radar system†is a bit like a hybrid of radar and lidar technology.
This technique uses lasers (infrared rays) to illuminate the road ahead but reflects radar signals like radar instead of particles. In addition, it provides higher resolution sensing than traditional radar or lidar technology.
Can an enterprise compete with a large company?
Many unmanned car projects have strong corporate financial support. For example, Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, can obtain subsidies from Google’s huge search profits. Uber also has a driverless car program, although it has encountered a series of legal and security issues, including being involved in a smashing pedestrian incident earlier this year.
Tesla also invested a lot of resources to develop its automotive assistive technology, but it also encountered many obstacles, especially its autopilot. Tesla is still facing other security issues. Although Apple’s driverless car program is less popular than other car companies, it continues to operate in the background.
Chinese companies such as Baidu and Didi have also launched the first “stack†of R&D facilities in Silicon Valley.
Traditional car manufacturers have also joined the ranks of competition. Back in 2016, General Motors spent $1 billion to acquire Cruise Automation to strengthen its unmanned technical capabilities. Ford, however, was not far behind and purchased a majority stake in ArgoAI for $1 billion.
This leaves us with a question: Is it even possible that even well-funded start-up companies are able to seize market dominance from established companies, or at least join them? There may be such a possibility.
The reason for so much investment cash flow to these companies is that the market opportunities brought by driverless technology are very large. This is not just a problem in the auto market itself. In 2018 alone, global car sales will exceed 80 million.
But when the computer takes over the steering wheel, how will we send the car time? This is also a huge cake. No wonder so many companies and their supporters want to share a small piece.
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