The Information estimates that around $16 billion has been spent over the last few years on developing autonomous vehicles. This is across some 30 companies. But about half of this spending has come from just three companies: Waymo (Alphabet), Cruise (GM), and Uber.
Waymo has been working on AVs for about a decade and the industry seems to believe that they are the furthest ahead. Still, the technology is not yet there and their AVs -- which are operating in Phoenix -- require lots of human supervision.
The sentiment right now is that self-driving cars are going to take much longer than initially anticipated and many more billions in R&D spending. Last year, Waymo was looking for financing from outside investors. Morgan Stanley said the business was worth about $105 billion .
Graph: The Information