Autonomous driving companies are becoming increasingly relevant as the technology driving these organizations improves. At the same time, the concept of autonomous driving companies being a part of our everyday lives is becoming more acceptable to people, whether that’s getting picked up for work, being driven around autonomously on an educational or industrial campus, or even enabling the elderly to regain independence by accessing self-driving cars to get to and from medical appointments.
We’ve created a list of the world’s leading autonomous driving companies, focusing on organizations whose vehicles are currently being used in real-world self driving scenarios.
List of leading autonomous driving companies
Waymo
CEO: Tekedra Mawakana (2021–), Dmitri Dolgov (2021–)
Waymo, originally a project of Google and still owned by parent company Alphabet, is an autonomous driving company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It began planning self-driving vehicles, and has rolled out a ride-hailing service called Waymo One in 4 US cities.
Tesla
CEO: Elon Musk (2008–)
As arguably the best-known autonomous driving company in the world, Tesla has promoted its Full Self Driving (FSD) option for a while. This still requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road at all times, however it does provide what is essentially an autonomous driving experience.
Carteav
CEO: Avinoam Barak (2020–)
Like others on this list, autonomous driving company Carteav’s autonomous electric carts are already being used in real-world deployments in the U.S. and internationally. Unlike the other autonomous driving companies on this list, Carteav is made specifically for managed areas such as resorts and manufacturing sites, and not open roads. This provides unique advantages in terms of control, visibility, safety, and convenience.
Carteav is used to move people and goods. So for example, on a college campus, someone can summon an autonomous cart on-demand using an app, and will be notified when it arrives. It can drop them at their destination, while a maintenance worker has used the app to “order” the cart to drop off supplies at another building. When it arrives at its location, the cart sends an sms notifying the recipient of the delivery.
It’s packed with safety features, maintains consistently low speeds, and is being rolled out in gated communities, retirement communities, and other managed areas worldwide.
Zoox
CEO: Aicha Evans (2019–)
Autonomous driving company Zoox is owned by Amazon, and is based in Foster City, California. The Zoox vehicle is a small fully autonomous electric van, and is built for ride hailing. There is still some uncertainty regarding its approval for public roads, given that the vehicle doesn’t have traditional controls like a steering wheel and pedals.
Baidu
CEO: Robin Li (2004–)
Chinese autonomous driving company Baidu offers its Apollo Go self-driving taxi service in China. In Wuhan for example, the company operates a fleet of 500 vehicles.
Cruise
CEO: Marc Whitten (2024–)
Cruise was a self-driving car company that was owned by General Motors. However in December of 2024, GM announced it would stop funding the company. The company showed promise but a series of incidents and investigations led to suspension of its service.
This highlights the pitfalls of open road autonomous vehicles, where an almost infinite number of variables needs to be taken into account in order to provide a safe driving experience
The future of autonomous driving companies
The future of open road autonomous driving companies remains unclear. Safety concerns and regulatory issues continue to dog these companies, with various methods presented to overcome some of these limitations. For example, Tesla’s requirement to keep hands on the wheel and driver attention on the road are one way of somewhat solving the problem.
These challenges have also highlighted the progress of autonomous driving organizations that do not operate on open roads. By limiting operations to managed areas and low speeds, these companies are leading the way in real-world adoption, providing solutions right now to people who can benefit most from the advantages that autonomous driving companies have to offer.
Learn more by getting in touch with the Carteav team.