IHS Automotive Study Says Google Leads In Development Of Autonomous Driving Technology

According to a recent report by market research company IHS, Google is the current leader in technology, testing and software development for autonomous vehicles.

Self-driving cars have become one of the most widespread research and development activities within the global auto industry in recent times. Automakers and technology companies are working diligently to advance the tools that are necessary to bring autonomous cars into production and to implement them for on-road testing and approvals.

The IHS Automotive report suggests Google’s autonomous driving R&D is so influential that Toyota’s November announcement of a $1 billion, five-year investment in artificial intelligence, driverless cars and robotics is partially a reaction to Google’s rapid technology advances.

“The key to self-driving cars is software that can interpret all of a vehicles’ sensors and learn to mimic the driving skills and experiences of the very best drivers,” IHS wrote in its report. “Google is the current technology leader in this arena, according to IHS Automotive estimates, which suggest the technology company has invested nearly $60 million so far in autonomous vehicle research and development, at a run rate of nearly $30 million per year.”

In its development of autonomous vehicles, Google is able to leverage technologies from its other projects and investments, including robotics, neural networks, artificial intelligence, drones, machine learning and machine vision.

“No other company has as much relevant technology to advance autonomous driving software,” said Egil Juliussen, senior research director at IHS Automotive. “Google is in a unique position to leverage adjacent technologies for developing self-driving car software. And its strategy and goal is to provide the software and map infrastructure to allow mobility services to anyone – via fleets of driverless cars – within a decade or less.”

Although Google is currently testing consumer cars in its autonomous vehicle program, this technology can also potentially be used in trucks and commercial vehicle fleets, thereby improving efficiencies and reducing transportation costs for companies, while simultaneously replacing human-driven vehicles for hazardous work.

Additionally, IHS estimates driverless cars-as-a-service (CaaS) will be deployed in 2025. “CaaS will provide car mobility services for anyone, since no driver’s license is needed and it will be an affordable transportation solution for a large portion of the global population,” IHS explained in its report. The market research firm estimated that 85 percent of the world’s population, almost 6.2 billion people, do not possess a driver’s license. The company wrote that while Uber is now starting to implement some of its own R&D in CaaS, “Google’s autonomous car, which is already being tested on U.S. roadways, will have a major impact in the coming years.”