Guidehouse report has Waymo on top of automated driving systems companies

May 01, 2021 12:00 AM

Waymo

Out of 15 companies developing automated driving systems, Waymo is in the lead, while Tesla comes in last, according to the latest leaderboard report from consulting company Guidehouse Insights.

The report, released last week, evaluated the companies and categorized them as leaders, contenders, challengers or followers.

Leaders scored 75 or above in strategy and execution, while contenders earned between 50 and 75. Challengers scored higher than 25 but were deemed not yet contenders, and followers scored below 25.

The leaderboard

The Leaders
The Guidehouse Insights report classifies companies based on their strategy and execution scores, the lesser of which determines their placement. The 4 companies classified as leaders are considered in the best position for long-term success in automated driving systems.

OVERALL RANK	OVERALL SCORE	STRATEGY SCORE	EXECUTION SCORE
1 Waymo	85.6	89.3	81.8
2 Nvidia	81.7	86.1	77.2
3 Argo AI	81.2	85.7	76.4
5 Baidu	79.7	83.2	76

The Contenders
OVERALL RANK	OVERALL SCORE	STRATEGY SCORE	EXECUTION SCORE
4 Cruise	80.2	85.8	74.2
6 Motional	77.5	81.2	73.7
7 Mobileye	75.3	76.2	74.5
8 Aurora	74.6	79	70
9 Zoox	74.4	74	74.8
10 Nuro	67.1	69.7	64.4
11 Yandex	62.5	64.5	60.4
13 AutoX	54.9	56.1	53.8

The Challengers
OVERALL RANK	OVERALL SCORE	STRATEGY SCORE	EXECUTION SCORE
12 Gatik	56.1	62.3	49.2
14 May Mobility	54.3	59.5	48.6

The Follower
OVERALL RANK	OVERALL SCORE	STRATEGY SCORE	EXECUTION SCORE
15 Tesla	34.7	24	42.8

Note: Guidehouse considered vision, go-to-market plans, partners, production strategy and technology in calculating strategy scores. Sales, marketing and distribution; commercial readiness; R&D progress; product portfolio; and staying power were considered in the execution score.

Guidehouse focused on companies developing automated driving systems rather than on companies directly commercializing autonomous vehicles. The report also focused only on companies developing for light- to medium-duty vehicles.

Waymo was also ranked the top vendor of automated driving vehicles on Guidehouse's leaderboard last year.

Nuro

"The trend I've seen from Waymo over the last four or five years is building not just the technologies, but building the other aspects of the business that are going to be needed in order to have it be a successful business," Sam Abuelsamid, Guidehouse principal research analyst, told Automotive News.

On the flip side, "There are certainly areas where Tesla has actually improved, things like the staying power score, which is the financial stability of the company," he said. "But in terms of their technology, despite the release of the full self-driving data, I don't really see any evidence that they've actually progressed relative to the other companies in this sector."