Above: An autonomous car from Delphi departs Treasure Island for a cross-country trip from San Francisco to New York City in San Francisco, California March 22, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
(Reuters) – Automotive suppliers and automakers are expanding alliances to develop self-driving car technology that can serve multiple automakers, as the race to put such vehicles on the road separates companies that can go it alone from those that need help sharing the financial and technical burdens.
While some companies, such as Tesla Motors, General Motors and Ford Motor, are trying to develop proprietary driverless systems, a larger group of automakers appears to have decided it makes more sense to develop self-driving technology in collaboration with suppliers – as many other features such as anti-lock brakes or radar-enabled cruise control already are.
“What’s going on in the industry right now is like a hyper version of musical chairs – and the music is still playing,” said Gill Pratt, chief executive officer of Toyota Research Institute. “Everyone is changing partners.”
Several suppliers – notably Mobileye, Nvidia and Delphi Automotive – are among the more popular technology partners in the self-driving race, with multiple alliances around the globe.
“If you want to build a truly autonomous car, this is a task for more than one player,” said Amnon Shashua, chief executive of Mobileye, an Israeli-based supplier of mapping and vision-based sensing systems.
“The technological challenges are immense,” Shashua told Reuters. “I would compare it to sending a man to the moon.”
Mobileye supplies cameras, chips and software for driver assist systems – the building blocks for self-driving cars – to more than two dozen manufacturers around the globe….