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A few months ago we gave our two cents on the race toward self-driving cars and brought to light a few of the startups making waves in the autonomous car industry.
Since then, technology has advanced, startups were purchased, enterprises developed solutions — and yet autonomous cars on the open road has yet to become a reality.
So what happened? And what can be done in order to bring the first self-driving car to the streets?
It all Comes Down to Co-opetition & Collaboration
While technology is advancing and companies are making great strides in certain aspects pertaining to autonomous cars, creating the first self-driving car on the market seems to be too daunting for a single company to take on themselves.
That’s why companies in all stages need to look to coopetition and collaboration if their goal is to truly be the first ones to release an autonomous car to the masses.
Collaboration from a Technological Standpoint
Global automotive brands may have the ‘four wheels and a body’ part running like a well-oiled machine, but in order to transform their vehicles into autonomous cars, they need a giant leap forward in innovation from a technological perspective – a leap they might not be able to take alone.
To do that, auto enterprises will need to incorporate the most cutting edge technology and solutions to make their cars intelligent enough to navigate the streets safely. What complicates things even further is the fact that they will need to do this while retaining their unique brand identities.
The best way to do that is through collaboration with startups.
To ensure that the strongest innovations and technological developments are under one roof, enterprises in the auto industry need to recognize the missing technology they need and seek out the right solution in the startup community to test against their innovation goals.
Beyond working with a single startup, car companies should take collaboration to the next level and bring together multiple startups. In doing so, they can truly bring together the strongest innovation under one roof – theirs.
Co-Opetition to Impact Regulation
While collaborating with startups is a great way to improve technology, it doesn’t solve the infrastructural and regulatory needs car companies face to make autonomous cars a reality.
Even if car companies can collaborate to create a self-driving car, smart cities need to be able to contain the new innovation and be built in a smarter way that nurtures the needs of the smart cars. Much has been discussed about smart cities, and governments recognize that smart cars are an aspect of smart cities, but infrastructural and regulatory changes have a long way to go.
To make a difference in the progression of smart cities and to impact regulation on a large scale, enterprises need to engage in active co-opetition with other car companies. Together, enterprises can push forward regulation to push forward the change needed to fully develop an effective autonomous car.
So How Far is the First Self-Driving Car?
While we would love to share that information with you, the truth is we just don’t have it because there is still a lot of collaboration and co-opetition that needs to happen on all levels in order to make the first smart car a reality.
For autonomous cars to make their way out of the test lane and onto our roadways, a lot of partnerships need to progress and yield better results than we’ve seen so far — startups and enterprises, co-opetition between enterprises and enterprises, and collaboration between government bodies and enterprises. Until then, we are all left watching and waiting.
