Detroit is kicking Silicon Valley’s ass in the race to build self-driving cars

We&#x27;ll see if it lasts. I grew up in Detroit and saw how they operated... encouraging &quot;japan bashing&quot; in the early 90&#x27;s recession and doubling down on gas guzzlers when the future was in high mileage cars.<p>Have they really changed? I seem to recall recently that they received a sweetheart deal from the current administration where as a prerequisite for actually investing in new plants, they received a promise that fuel efficiency standards would be lowered. They want to sell comparative gas guzzlers again... bigger cars mean. more profits! Who cares if the extra. emissions causes premature deaths in the largest market in the US (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;lanow&#x2F;la-me-pollution-deaths-20160810-snap-story,amp.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;lanow&#x2F;la-me...</a>).<p>Sigh, they are not only being subsidized, but they are heaping the costs on the very same public that bailed them out of certain death.

Detroit is in it for the long-haul. They have the hardware and they have the pockets to sustain something without having to have a return for investors or aiming for an IPO.<p>That said, these tech rags can&#x27;t seem to be able to decide who is ahead and who&#x27;s not. Or rather, they get more page views by one day saying SV is ahead, and then, another day declare Detroit is ahead. I don&#x27;t think anyone knows for sure, it&#x27;s all bets and future execution, but I wish the tech media were a little more journalistically drive when reporting these things.

It&#x27;s nice to see some different perspectives in the race to autonomous cars.<p>I do wish the axes of the graph were a bit different. Possibly &quot;Technology Adv vs. Business Adv&quot;.<p>They had a great insight on how some companies may able to deliver a working product to the masses much easier, while others may be ahead on tech but may have trouble on scaling or production or rolling out a way to make it profitable and grow. I think that was a major insight of the article those two dimensions, but the graph picks two other dimensions to compare companies on.<p>For example Waymo is listed as being &quot;way out in front of everyone&quot; in tech. I&#x27;d expect to seem them at the extreme of on of the two axes.<p>They don&#x27;t have the existing business of uber, nor the production line of ford, so I&#x27;d expect them lower in the other axis.<p>That graph I feel would&#x27;ve been a better presentation of the data. Now I&#x27;m just left wondering how their huge tech advantage leaves them in the &quot;middle&quot; of each axis.

The click bait title is clickbait.<p>But there is an interesting nugget in there: the article claims Detroit plans to start doing ride sharing and other services where they can lease their autonomous tech as a fleet.<p>Uber seems to be behind on autonomy, and Detroit won&#x27;t need drivers if they can ship autonomy.<p>That actually seems somewhat credible.

Did I miss something?<p>Last I checked the &quot;leaders&quot; group here, Daimler, Ford and GM all have rather large R&amp;D centers in Silicon Valley.