GM, Waymo Race to the Lead in Autonomous Vehicle Rankings

Navigant Consulting Inc.’s latest autonomous vehicle report ranks General Motors and Google’s Waymo unit in a “dead heat” when it comes to leadership in developing and deploying self-driving cars.

In last year’s report, GM ranked second behind Ford. This year Navigant says GM’s best-in-market strategy gives it a slight edge over Waymo. Navigant also cites GM’s Maven mobility unit and manufacturing and service capabilities.

Waymo jumped ahead of several competitors this year after previously being ranked in Navigant’s second-tier “contenders” group. The improvement is based in part on the tech company’s recent collaborations with AutoNation, Avis and Lyft.

Navigant evaluated 19 autonomous vehicle developers (including some multi-company partnerships) based on their vision, go-to-market strategy, technology, sales and marketing, product capability and vehicle portfolio, quality and reliability, partners, production strategy and staying power.

The cost and complexity of automated driving technologies are accelerating the number of partnerships and acquisitions in the field, the consulting firm notes.

The rest of this year’s top-tier developers in descending order, beginning with second place, are Daimler-Bosch, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW-Intel-FCA and Aptiv (which was split off from Delphi last year). The Renault-Nissan Alliance is ranked in between the first- and second-tier groups.

Topping the contenders group are Volvo-Autoliv-Ericsson-Zenuity and PSA. They’re followed by Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, Navya, Baidu-BAIC and Hyundai. Third-tier “challengers” are Honda, Uber, Apple and Tesla.​​