Apr. 10 at 2:31 PM
$WRD here's the list of the primary L4 AV companies authorized to operate.
Numbers shown are # of AV in operation, # of years to get to authorization/prodcution, money spent getting to authorization/production:
WAYMO 2,500–3,000 vehicles, 9 years,
$25B-
$30B
Zoox (Amazon) 100 vehicles, 11 years,
$10B
Baidu Apollo Go >1,000 vehicles, 5 years, <
$1B
Pony 1,446 vehicles, 7 years, >
$2B
WeRide 1,600+ vehicles, 8 years,
$1.5B
It is harder for new entrants to reach commercial L4 ops today compared to when the current leaders started. The AV industry has moved into a consolidation phase, with extremely high barriers that favor well-funded incumbents.
Leaders have accumulated hundreds of millions to billions of real-world autonomous miles. A new entrant starts with almost zero proprietary data. Argo, Ghost and Cruise stopped/quit L4 AV production.
Obtaining permits for unsupervised driver less operations is tougher now.
New entrants are not a worry. Capturing market share is what matters.
