Industry | Although Ford is at the top and Baidu is at the bottom, the winner of autonomous driving technology cannot be determined by a list.

Recently, a research report on autonomous driving from Navigant Research gave a comprehensive ranking of 18 automakers, suppliers and technology companies.

Among them, traditional automobile manufacturers, with decades of industry experience, have temporarily gained a leading edge in the layout of autonomous driving. The following are the top 10 on the list:

The remaining rankings are: PSA, Tesla, Toyota, ZF, Honda, Uber, nuTonomy, and Baidu.

Navigant Research's report uses 10 criteria to quantify the strategies and execution of these 18 automakers, suppliers, and technology companies in developing autonomous driving systems, including: vision, market strategy, partnerships, production strategy, technical capabilities, sales capabilities, mass production capabilities, product quality and reliability, product portfolio capabilities, and sustainability capabilities.

In addition, the report divides these companies into four tiers based on the two dimensions of strategy and execution: Leader, Contender, Challenger and Follower.

Judging from the overall ranking and echelon division, the current competitive situation in autonomous driving is that traditional car companies have completely defeated Internet companies and related innovative companies.

Four major automakers ranked in the first echelon

Ford Motor, General Motors Co., Renault-Nissan and Daimler AG are well-positioned for autonomous driving, according to Navigant.

According to Leifeng.com, the above four automobile manufacturers have developed targeted advanced driver assistance systems. They have also revealed detailed plans for this technology in the future and will achieve this goal through strategic cooperation and investment and mergers and acquisitions.

• Ford Motor: Under CEO Mark Fields, Ford is moving full speed ahead with autonomous driving technology. According to Leifeng.com, Ford has invested in lidar manufacturer Velodyne, Civil Maps and artificial intelligence company Argo AI, and acquired car-sharing startup Char iot . Fields said Ford will invest $700 million in the Flat Rock Assembly plant in Michigan to develop L4-level autonomous vehicles - these vehicles do not require human intervention in certain environments. Ford also plans to mass-produce L4-level autonomous vehicles for commercial operations in 2021, such as for car sharing and time-sharing rental.

• General Motors: GM has been making similar efforts, such as investing in car-sharing platform Lyft and acquiring autonomous driving startup Cruise Automation. GM CEO Mary Barra said in December that GM will begin testing autonomous vehicles on Michigan roads in 2017.

• Renault-Nissan: The Renault-Nissan Alliance has already introduced ADAS systems. Last year, engineers from Renault-Nissan tested the technology on Japanese highways for autonomous driving. In the United States, the Nissan Leaf will be equipped with the second-generation ADAS system. Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn said they plan to start mass production of autonomous vehicles in 2020.

• Daimler: The automaker has invested heavily in developing ADAS, releasing a Tesla-like version of its self-driving feature on its Mercedes-Benz S-Class and E-Class models. Daimler said it will work with Uber to use self-driving cars for car-sharing services.

BMW, Volvo, Volkswagen Group, Hyundai Motor, Tesla, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Toyota Motor are ranked after the above four automakers.

Google's self-driving company Waymo and suppliers ZF and Delphi are also in the second wave of competition. But strangely, Bosch, also a supplier, did not appear on this list.

Honda, Uber, self-driving startup NuTonomy and Baidu followed closely behind.

Why do some companies rank low?

According to Navigant, the difference between the bottom-ranked companies and the leaders is a lack of partners, investment or consumer trust, as well as a lack of a clear deployment strategy and on-road technology testing. However, these factors are likely to change as autonomous driving technology develops.

According to Leiphone.com, Sam Abuelsamid, a co-author of the report and an analyst at Navigant, said in an interview that Waymo's autonomous driving technology is in a very leading position due to its long-term accumulation, but it still needs to find partners to provide it with complete vehicles (such as Chrysler and Honda), so its ranking has been lowered accordingly.

Regarding Tesla, a Silicon Valley star company whose market value just surpassed Ford and GM, being included in the challenger category, Abuelsamid said, "Tesla still has many shortcomings in terms of product quality, marketing strategy, and financial stability, and its autonomous driving technology level is difficult to achieve above Level 4."

For the practical application of autonomous driving, shared travel is a very suitable scenario. Although Uber has an inherent advantage in this regard, GM and Ford are also actively developing similar businesses. This may also be one of the factors affecting the rating and ranking.

Although small startups have many innovative ideas, they do not have a viable commercialization path, and the most likely way out in the future is to be acquired. After acquiring these companies, large companies obtain their autonomous driving technology-related achievements and talents. For example, General Motors acquired Cuise Automation, which can help automakers in autonomous driving development, testing, manufacturing and mass production.

In fact, this report also indirectly reflects that the gap between automobile manufacturers and Internet companies (such as Google, Uber, Baidu) and emerging technology companies in autonomous driving is narrowing, especially when autonomous driving technology is implemented at the vehicle level, the advantages of automobile manufacturers are particularly prominent.

Of course, the results presented in this report by Navigant can only be used as a reference and are not absolutely authoritative due to the different biases in the selection and scoring criteria.

After all, the real winner of autonomous driving depends not only on technology, but also on the competition between "alliances" and "alliances" in the future, as Qin Lihong, co-founder of NIO, said at the IT Leadership Summit. There is no possibility of first-come, first-served or rich people having a say.