Manufacturing an autonomous vehicle proves to be tougher and costlier than many of the inexperienced startups might have thought. But there is the dynamic opportunity to team up with OEM giants to propel towards faster solutions and to hunt the pole position in this rapidly evolving marketplace.
- Startup Aptiv joint ventures with Hyundai - Aktiv designs automotive electronic systems https://www.aptiv.com
- Waymo and Jaguar https://waymo.com
- Cruise and GM https://www.getcruise.com
- Argo AI with VW and Ford https://www.argo.ai
To entry price for acquisitions starts at $1.1 billion - this is also the price Amazon paid for the acquisition of Zoox. The number of independent startups shrinks, as also the following examples show:
- Voyage announced a partnership with Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles
- Mobileye was acquired by Intel and in turn bought up Moovit, an app for navigating cities
- Aurora finished a partnership with VW last year and focuses to built software tech for autonomous truck driving
COVID however seems to speed up the consolidation of this market place so it remains to see which partnerships will thrive.
Graphic source: Car vector created by macrovector