Bloomberg published an article which examines the winners in the “race of unmanned vehicles”. In the race to launch the world’s first service of unmanned vehicles the undisputed leader became Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet under which wing is and Google.
Waymo a year ahead of its main competitors, introduced the drones, it plans to launch a full taxi service-drones-by the end of 2018, and yet as part of testing, passengers can free ride on the drones.
Waymo closest competitor was General Motors . This automaker has a substantial investment from Japanese SoftBank — $2.25 billion, in addition to its own $1.1 billion GM plans to launch carsharing service with the Chevrolet Bolt without a steering wheel and pedals in 2019.
Expect other automakers to enter the market not before 2020. In third place is Mercedes-Benz with his long-developing adaptive cruise control. Parent company Daimler is already preparing together with Bosch and NVIDIA experienced model with a fourth and fifth level of autonomy, as well as testing the vans V-class. The first unmanned Mercedes taxi will be on the road in 2021.
Next comes Aptiv Plc, the former Delphi Automotive. The company is well invested in automation technology, it acquired software developer Ottomatika and shares in manufacturers of lidar — Innoviz, Leddertech and Quanergy Systems. Also under the wing of Aptiv moved NuTonomy, on account of which the tests of drones for urban roads of Boston and Singapore. At the January CES 2018 Aptiv together with demonstrated Lyft taxi-drone. The company uses the Audi and BMW.
In fifth place is the startup Zoox. It uses the Toyota Highlander and has already conducted tests on the same road that GM and the highway. If Zoox will be able to attract additional investments, it expects to own the drone by 2020.
These manufacturers are also Renault-Nissan, Volkswagen and Audi, BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Ford and Volvo, as well as Uber, Tesla and Baidu.