Self-driving cars are expensive
Emailed on February 7th 2020 in The Friday Forward
A group of 30 companies have spent at least $16 billion on developing fully self-driving cars over the past few years—and so far they have little, if any, revenue to show for it. But billions more will likely be needed before the technology is ready for primetime.
According to The Information, just three companies spent half of that money—Alphabet’s Waymo, GM’s Cruise, and Uber. Four other companies, including Apple, Baidu, Ford and Toyota, spent most of the rest. Only a few of those—most prominently Alphabet, Toyota and Apple—have the kind of immensely deep pockets that guarantee they can stay the course for the long run. And Apple has already pulled back on its investment.
Atop The Information's spender list is Waymo, which has been working on self-driving vehicles for about a decade. Most practitioners believe Waymo has the most advanced prototype. But while Waymo insiders believe their tech is worth tens of billions of dollars or as much as $100 billion as of last year, the company doesn’t appear to have persuaded an outside investor to agree on such a valuation, and Waymo isn’t close to being a functional business.
More here from The Information for a full breakdown of each player's spending.
