Self-Driving Cars Partnerships

Confused about whom is working with whom on developing, delivering, and operating self driving cars? So was I. Thus, to catch up, I decided to map out the current key players and partnerships.

(Yes, this is not pretty. I am not a designer and so it is not beautiful but hopefully it is still useful.)

As one can see, it is a complex ecosystem. This diagram is definitely incomplete and almost certainly will be out of date very soon. This is a very dynamic space.

A few things to note:

• Nvidia has established partnerships or is the system of choice for a number of players, including most of the key automakers. Whatever the outcome, it seems that Nvidia will be a winner.
• The Apollo Consortium, lead by Baidu, is an increasingly large and powerful consortium of, now, more than 130 partners collaborating on code, tools, and data.
• There is a second consortium present, not indicated, consisting of BMW, Mobileye, Magna, Fiat, Delphi, and Continental (and perhaps others).
• Tesla, which gets a disproportionate share of coverage, stands out as a loner, even planning to drop its partnership with Nvidia and develops its own “super kick-ass” computer system.