The world's 8 key companies in the field of autonomous driving

Self-driving cars come in many forms. Whether it's a daily shuttle system that follows a fixed route, or a car that perfectly reverses while you sit back and relax, self-driving cars (as we all know them) are already here. Many companies are working tirelessly to ensure that fully autonomous driving becomes the norm in everyone’s lives.

While many vehicles have self-driving features like emergency braking and adaptive cruise control, it's very rare to see a fully self-driving vehicle on the road. The UK plans to roll out self-driving cars by 2025, and while no U.S. state has any specific laws banning self-driving cars, self-driving cars are still limited to trial operation vehicles from companies such as Waymo and Cruise. In the United States, Tesla hopes to gain regulatory approval for its fully self-driving beta vehicles sometime in 2023.

Although there may be delays, considering the speed of development of technology and engineering, fully autonomous vehicles are the general trend.

Why develop autonomous driving?

Things that once appeared in science fiction movies are quickly becoming a reality. Of the six levels of self-driving, all levels and types of automation are built around improving one key area: safety.

Nearly 90% of car accidents are caused by driver error. This percentage can be reduced significantly by making the vehicle more autonomous. Safer roads have additional effects that benefit other areas of driving. Fewer crashes will reduce traffic congestion and reduce repair costs, making a self-driving future more cost-effective. This will help save fuel and reduce emissions, which will also have a knock-on effect on the environment.

If fully autonomous driving is achieved in the future, driver supervision will no longer be required, which means that those who currently rely on others to get around will have greater driving freedom. This is especially true for disabled drivers. In 2012, Google (now Waymo) gave Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, the opportunity to test its self-driving cars. The car uses sensors to do all the work, positioning the driver safely on the road and autonomously deciding when to turn, brake and exit intersections. This "test drive" allowed Steve to buy food without leaving his car and took him to pick up dry cleaning.

Steve commented on his experience: "This is the promise of independent travel. These cars will change the life prospects of people like me."

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the exciting companies working on autonomous driving, those making progress in autonomous driving technology.

Tesla 

Tesla, founded by Elon Musk in 2003, is one of the most popular electric car makers and the first company to offer what it calls fully autonomous vehicles.

Its autonomous driving technology is named Autopilot, which is an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) with many autonomous driving functions. When Autopilot was first introduced in 2013, Elon Musk said, "Autopilot is great on airplanes, so we should have it on cars."

Current systems include features such as traffic-aware cruise control, automatic steering, automatic parking, automatic lane changing, and even automatic park and summon—you can summon the car to come to you even in a parking lot.

While this certainly sounds like the car of the future, Tesla is actively encouraging users to ensure they can pay attention even when Autopilot is running. Before enabling Autopilot, you must agree to "Always keep your hands on the steering wheel." If the car thinks it hasn't done so, it emits a series of visual and audio warnings, ultimately disabling Autopilot for the remainder of the journey.

In the United States, Tesla offers a fully self-driving beta version to anyone willing to pay, and while it is available, it has not yet received regulatory approval. As stated on Tesla’s website, “Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, and Full Self-Driving features are designed to be used with a fully attentive driver who has their hands on the wheel and is ready to take over. While these Features become more powerful over time, but the features currently enabled do not enable the vehicle to drive itself."

However, Tesla is pushing the boundaries of technology and regulatory frameworks and is confident of achieving its goals sooner than later.

Cruise

Cruise is a self-driving car company based in California. Founded in 2013, it is the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors (GM) and is the core of its self-driving efforts. Since its founding, Cruise has made great strides in autonomous driving and has a number of investors including Microsoft and Honda. During this time, it also received a driverless deployment license from the state of California - meaning it is able to use its driverless vehicles to provide public taxi services.

Cruise is currently expanding its self-driving fleet with the goal of making driving smoother, more convenient, and safer.

To achieve this, Cruise uses a data visualization tool called Webviz in their vehicles, which uses code-intensive algorithms to predict the movement of pedestrians, other vehicles, and anything else in the area around the vehicle. Webviz then uses this data to instantly decide what action the car should take. This is an evolving tool and the more you use it, the better it gets. Given the potential of Webviz, it was originally expanded as a tool for self-driving cars. But since its launch, Webviz has become open source software and is now used in many other industries, most notably robotics.

ideal car 

Li Auto is an electric vehicle manufacturer based in China. The company founded and owned by Li Xiang, sometimes known as Li Xiang, uses range extenders as power sources for electric vehicles. This means it can travel longer distances and reduce the need to stop and recharge.

The company's focus is "creating safer, more comfortable, and more convenient products and services for families." To achieve this goal, all their vehicles are equipped with a "smart space" three-dimensional space interactive experience, including a 4D immersive audio and video system and a five-screen interactive window mode. This means that no matter where you sit in the car, you can have an immersive audio-visual experience. This, combined with multiple ADAS features, brings a future-proof driving experience.

In addition to "smart space", Li Auto also promotes smart driving in its vehicles. By using Lidar-equipped LiDAR L9, its vehicles include high-performance cameras and intelligent driving platforms to increase the safety of these vehicles on the road, which the company is actively working to improve.

Telechips 

Telechips is a Korean company founded in 1999 that specializes in developing SoC products for autonomous vehicles and ADAS systems. It has become a very successful business in the industry and has multiple offices around the world, including Japan, China, the United States, Germany and Singapore.

The company's products are not only used in set-top boxes and media players. It also focuses its efforts on automotive semiconductors to enhance the infotainment and "cockpit" of future cars; its chips are mainly used in smart car solutions. These products are flexible and support multiple operating systems, including Android, Linux and Windows.

Texas Instruments 

Founded in 1930, Texas Instruments, commonly known as TI, is the oldest company on the industry roster and designs, manufactures, tests and sells analog and embedded semiconductors. These semiconductors are used in all markets, including industrial, personal electronics, communications, enterprise systems, and most importantly for this article, automotive.

TI's primary goal is to create a better world by making electronics more affordable through semiconductors and improving applications and markets through its products. This makes it one of the top ten semiconductor companies in the world by sales and holds the largest market share in the analog semiconductor industry.

TI's automotive industry is working hard to improve ADAS systems, infotainment systems, electronics, lighting and any other challenges they face. Its ADAS system solutions focus on safety and driving autonomy, leveraging lidar, radar, ultrasound, automotive 360-degree cameras and smart sensing. TI aims to succeed and deliver innovation quickly and "be prepared for the road ahead."

Renesas Electronics 

Renesas Electronics is a Japanese manufacturer of analog, power and embedded semiconductors formed in 2002 through the merger of Mitsubishi Electronics, Hitachi and NEC. Its business starts with R&D and handles the entire process from semiconductor product sales and services.

Renesas' key message is simple - "Make our lives easier." It aims to achieve this by establishing itself as the world's leading progressive and modern semiconductor company. Its products cover all areas of future automobiles, from ADAS and autonomous driving to safety, information and electric driving. Its R-Car SoC is the basis for many infotainment and ADAS solutions and has used Imagination's PowerVR architecture-based GPUs for many years.

Xiaopeng 

Founded in 2014, Xpeng Motors is an automaker headquartered in Guangdong, China, with offices in California, the United States, and many locations in Asia and Europe. It aims to explore the full potential of mobility – from electric cars to flying cars. Its core belief is simple: technology will transform the future of mobility. Xpeng hopes to position itself as a leader in smart mobility by using integrated internet and artificial intelligence technology in its vehicles.

Through its in-vehicle intelligent operating system Xmart OS, Xpeng Motors has promoted itself as a global leader in intelligent driver assistance architecture, ADAS and autonomous driving advancements. Its operating system improvements include a meditation mode, remote parking, adaptive cruise control, lane change assist, valet parking assist, and even a high-temperature antibacterial feature that was introduced during the pandemic and remains today. With every operating system update, Xpeng Motors is building a system that brings us one step closer to a fully autonomous driving experience.