The concept of cars driving themselves, saving lives and enabling personalised transport has been in development since the 1970’s, but recently it’s obvious that AI accelerates autonomous driving solutions. Robotaxis will be a hotly contested market over the next five years. Multiple vendors and solution providers pick up where others have fallen out of the race. BYD is just one such company. Hardware and exponential increase in AI performance from multiple models from NVidia and others have broken down the barriers to building appropriate autonomous vehicles.
Every autonomous vehicle, operating as personal public transportation, will displace 10 other privately owned vehicles. So, there is some hope that 1.4 billion vehicles will not be needed and that only about 250 million vehicles will be available for public transportation. Together with individually owned e-bikes, our streets will become less congested, and the 3 largest cost of for households will be halved.
The Race is On
It has always been a race between the hardware to provide the driving and the software that controls the whole process and the advances in AI have shown the software has caught up and exceeds the hardware. In the first weeks of 2025, a number of announcements show this race is heating up, not slowing down. 2025 will be the year that autonomous driving will move from limited rollout to fast deployment. More cities and more countries. Two such examples are below.
Software Systems
Flowpilot [1] allows you to set up autonomous driving on cars with just a smartphone. The open-source driver assistant can run on Linux, Windows, and Android devices. Innovative but also terrifying and super illegal at the same time!
Manufacturers of Self-Driving AI Solutions
In previous blogs such has Autonomous driving by 2023 we listed multiple vendors developing robotaxis. Many have dropped out the race but others have entered. Here is a list of just some of the others. We will review BYD announcements here. They do not yet have any vehicles but have stated all will have Level 2/3.
Compare this list to just 3 years ago Robotaxi Manufacturers 2022
Western Manufacturers 2025
The Chinese companies are leading globally. A major challenge is where is the data captured. The market may split into Western countries and those where it is ok for data to be stored in China.
| Company | Launched | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Waymo | 2018 | Available in several U.S. cities, including San Francisco and Phoenix, with plans to expand to more locations. Partnered with Hyundai for vehicles |
| Cruise | Acquired by GM 2016[2] | Lauched beta services but in 2024 ceased operations and folding into personal cars |
| Tesla[3], [4], [5] | FSD announced 2017. Slowly progressing | Announced June 2025 to launch in Austin, TX and multiple cities in USA in 2025 |
| Ford and Argo | Initial launch planned 2021 | In 2023, Ford a subsidiary, Latitude AI, dedicated to advancing semi-autonomous driving technology. This initiative incorporated approximately 25% of the workforce from Ford’s former self-driving affiliate, Argo AI. Latitude AI is tasked with developing a hands-free, eyes-off-the-road automated driving system designed for widespread deployment across millions of vehicles. How are they doing? They say Level 3 by 2026. |
| Zoox | Acquired by Amazon | Launch in Las Vegas in 2025, with vehicles trials in SF and Miami |
| Hyundai[8] | Plans to aggressively enter self driving market. | Hyundai has partnered with Waymo with Ioniq5 SUV’sPartnered with Aptiv for technologyPartnered with NVidia to develop software stack, computers, AI |
| Toyota [9] | Toyota has been a laggard in EVs and only at CES 2025 announced something. | Toyota will be using Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin platform and DriveOS operating system in its next-generation vehicles. |
Chinese Autonomous
| Company | Launched | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Baidu’s Apollo Go | Sept 2019 | 10 Chinese cities. In August 2022, Baidu secured permits to deploy fully driverless taxis in Wuhan and Chongqing. They also unveiled the Apollo ADFM, claimed to be the world’s first Level 4 autonomous driving foundation model. Granted license in Hong Kong. |
| AutoX | Backed by Alibaba | Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Silicon Valley, and Hangzhou, covering a total area of over 600 square kilometers globally. In these cities, AutoX has deployed large-scale RoboTaxi operations and has begun commercial operations in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The company now operates autonomous driving services across more than 3,000 square kilometers of area worldwide. |
| We-Ride | We-Ride [6] holds driverless permits in China, the UAE, Singapore, and USA. | Conducts autonomous driving R&D, tests and operations in over 30 cities of 9 countries around the world. Has Robacar, Robobus and just launched their Robovan with L4 ADAS Cities include Beijing, Hengqin, Guangzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Singapore, and others. |
| Pony AI [7] | Collaborates with multiple manufacturers. | Shanghai, Beijing,Shenzhen, Guangzhou Hangzhou, Silicon,and in California. Moving into trucking. Pony.ai has collaborated with Toyota on a pilot project, integrating its self-driving technology into a fleet of Lexus RX vehicles. GAC Group – partnered to co-develop a mass-produced Robotaxi model based on GAC AION’s vehicles. FAW Group, one of China’s largest automakers, to explore autonomous driving solutions. SAIC Motor – a Chinese automaker, on autonomous driving technology. |
| BYD | Announced across all vehicles from L2 to L | See announcement in Feb 2025 across all vehicles from lowest cost vehicle to high end. Include DeepSeek LLM |
SAE J3106 Automation
The levels of ADAS (Assisted Driver Automations Systems) have been defined previously [10] and presented in graphic form by SAE [11]
SAE J3106 Detailed Graphic
Here are the levels as defined level 0 to level 5. Level 4 will be better than humans in most conditions.
What Does This Mean for Self Driving?
A simpler view is this graphic.
History of Self Driving
It is interesting to look back at the history to see how a technology can take 50 years from idea to reality. [12]
Time Changes Leaderboard
Here are 3 years from Navigant. 2012. 2017 and 2019. In 2012, they had Tesla last. Many of the others faded or were rolled into new ventures.
References for AI Accelerates Autonomous Driving Solutions
[1] ‘FlowDrive’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://flowdrive.ai/
[2] ‘GM to exit loss-making Cruise robotaxi business | Reuters’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/general-motors-drop-development-cruise-robotaxi-2024-12-10/
[3] ‘Big Ideas 2023: Robotics And 3D Printing’, Ark Invest. Accessed: Jun. 29, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.ark-invest.com/big-ideas-2023/3d-printing-and-robotics
[4] C. Wood, ‘Big Ideas 2024 | ARK Invest’, Ark Invest Big Ideas. Accessed: Apr. 27, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://ark-invest.com/big-ideas-2024
[5] ‘ARK’s Expected Value For Tesla In 2029: $2,600 Per Share’, Ark Invest. Accessed: Jun. 13, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.ark-invest.com/articles/valuation-models/arks-tesla-price-target-2029?
[6] ‘WeRide – Media Resources’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.weride.ai/press
[7] ‘Autonomous trucks eye wider applications – Chinadaily.com.cn’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202108/20/WS611f1447a310efa1bd66a051.html
[8] ‘Hyundai and Waymo Enter Multi-Year, Strategic Partnership’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/newsroom/detail/hyundai-and-waymo-enter-multi-year%252C-strategic-partnership-0000000841
[9] ‘Toyota’s Game-Changing Cars: Powered by Nvidia’s Supercomputers for Next-Level Automation – ITP.net’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.itp.net/edge/automotive/toyotas-game-changing-cars-powered-by-nvidias-supercomputers-for-next-level-automation
[10] ‘(PDF) The Role of Infrastructure in an Automated Vehicle Future’, ResearchGate. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326656172_The_Role_of_Infrastructure_in_an_Automated_Vehicle_Future
[11] ‘SAE J3016 automated-driving graphic’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.sae.org/site/news/2019/01/sae-updates-j3016-automated-driving-graphic
[12] ‘Issue Brief | Autonomous Vehicles: State of the Technology and Potential Role as a Climate Solution | White Papers | EESI’. Accessed: Feb. 14, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/issue-brief-autonomous-vehicles-state-of-the-technology-and-potential-role-as-a-climate-solution
