The Autonomous Mobility Unicorns

Waymo with a projected valuation of $250 billion is the poster-child of autonomous mobility unicorns. Here’s a look at the some of unicorns in this space.

One quantitative measure of comparison is California DMV’s Autonomous Vehicle Disengagement Reports. The last self reported 2018 data by the participating companies gives us an idea of the leaders in the space. 

However, this is by no means a comprehensive data set since it is limited to self reported data from companies testing autonomous vehicles in California, it nevertheless provides some basis for comparison.

A similar data collection is done by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport (BMCT) that showed among others, Baidu with its Apollo platform completing 87,000 miles of autonomous testing in 2018 making it another top contender. 

One other prominent player Aptiv, states it has logged over one million autonomous miles globally. They also have a partnership with Lyft and reports to have given over 30,000 rides to Lyft users

Here is a list of some of the key AV companies and their reported valuation estimates at time of writing. 

Company Reported Valuation
$175 billion
$15 billion
?
?
$7.25 billion
$4 billion
$3.2 billion
$2.7 billion
$2.5 billion
$1+ billion
?
$1+ billion
$1+ billion
$1 billion

Even though Tesla does not test autonomous vehicles on public roads year, it reports over one billion AutoPilot miles and also claims to operate a ‘shadow-mode’ to analyze and improve its Autopilot. During its Autonomy Day, Elon Musk showcased its self-driving chip and announced Tesla will have over a million cars and robo-taxis with will full self-driving tech in 2020.

It will be interesting to see how these companies fare in the next few years. Share your thoughts and suggestions below.

 

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