Google, Apple And The Establishment In The Race For The First Driverless Car - Where Are You Placing Your Bets?

Last week’s “exclusive” in the Guardian claiming to “confirm Apple is building self-driving car” raised quite a buzz. Much of that buzz was skeptical, with many pointing out that the facts failed to support the Guardian’s conclusion.

The logical leap that Guardian made was that an Apple engineer’s interest in the GoMentum Station vehicle test track confirmed Apple’s driverless car program. This is too big a leap, as a range of Apple car-related aspirations—self-driving or not—might have use for such a test track.

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TheSteve - 8/25/2015 1:51:10 PM

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First, let's make it clear that Apple has denied they're working on a driverless car. We also have no evidence to suggest they are. In fact, all known evidence shows they're aiming squarely at vehicle infotainment systems, in-car WiFi, and such.

And yes, there are also the wild-ass rumors and misinformation, like the article alleging that Apple was acquiring a military base to conduct autonomous vehicle tests when the facts told us otherwise: officials at the military base released info about the permits Apple had registered to do WiFi tests, and other Apple *inquiries* ("inquire" vs "acquire" is a huge difference).

On the other hand, Google already has vehicles on the road with over 1,000,000 test miles behind them. Other lesser players include Audi and their autonomous car project.

At this moment, it appears that Google is very much in the lead.