Tesla Self-Driving Cars Have Much More Competition From Ford And GM

Tesla are not the only players in the autonomous vehicle world, with many of the competition, now investing heavily.

Tesla may be getting most of the headlines when it comes to self driving vehicles, but the competition and investing heavily, with all seeing a future where autonomous vehicles will rule the roost. Alphabet, Uber and Tesla are probably the most well-known in this market, but now Ford and General Motors have released big budgeting plans moving forward.

Ford have just announced that they are going to move forward aggressively with a $1 billion investment in a start-up artificial intelligence company named Argo AI over the next five years. Mark Fields, president and CEO of Ford commented, 'The next decade will be defined by the automation of the automobile, and autonomous vehicles will have as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago. As Ford expands to be an auto and a mobility company, we believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Ford’s leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term and by creating technology that could be licensed to others in the future.'

Ford will be major stakeholders in Argo AI which will use their robotics talents to develop self driving car hardware, with Argo being able to operate by itself with its own board from this point on. Ford plans on bringing fully autonomous vehicles by 2021.

GM are also currently testing over 40 Electric Chevy Bolts with self driving capability and they hope to be the first auto maker to produce soft driving vehicles in mass production. When it comes to investment in this area, General Motors and also stumped up $1 billion for Cruise Automation and Lyft to further push the cause.

However, Tesla still seem ahead of the pack with the release of their hardware 2 last year and constant software updates which the company say can bring you self driving capabilities very soon. With the release of the Tesla model 3 at the end of the year which should bring a more affordable EV vehicle to the masses, self driving capabilities for Tesla should be well ahead of the curve when it comes the competition.

Now with heavy investment from the likes of GM and Ford and more competition in the self driving world, it can only mean eventual better pricing for the consumer. With many thinking autonomous driving is the only way forward with electric vehicles, Tesla may also just have the edge in the long run.