Navigant Research
Alphabet's self-driving car unit officially became its own independent company, $4. Tesla says its cars now come with hardware that will $4 when the regulatory environment allows it. That doesn't even mention the various startups, like $4, now vying for a foothold in the space.
$4 assessed all the self-driving-car players and has released its leadership grid showing who is most poised to bring Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 self-driving cars to market in the next decade. Navigant first released its leadership grid in the third-quarter of 2015, but says in its report that the "landscape for automated driving has advanced significantly" since then.
(For reference, Level 2 and 3 autonomous systems refers to vehicles that can handle some complex driving tasks, but still primarily relies on a driver. Level 4 autonomy refers to cars that can drive themselves without any human intervention, but only in certain geographic regions. You can get a better $4.)
Companies on the the Leadership Grid were assessed on 10 criteria: vision; go-to market strategy; partners; production strategy; technology; product capability; sales, marketing & distribution; product quality and reliability; product portfolio; staying power. The companies were then given an overall score out of 100 based on their performance in each category.
Scores were boosted for those who have announced Level 2 autonomy plans for 2017 or 2018 as well as for companies that have publicly demonstrated Level 4 autonomy.
Scroll down to see the 18 companies slated to get their autonomous systems to market first, ranked: