The Big 4

In a short and disjointed piece, Mike Montgomery at Forbes labels Apple, Google, Tesla, and Uber as the new Big Four of automotive technology.

This is not itself outlandish, but its worth considering that these four companies are doing 3 different things.

1. Tesla, and reportedly Apple, are manufacturing autonomous vehicles.
2. Google is creating autonomous vehicle software.
3. Uber is creating a transportation network.

All four of these companies touch each other, sometimes in multiple ways.

And maybe over time their goals will converge, or maybe not.

Of course, they can still be the Big Four dominant companies in the autonomous vehicle market, even if they’re doing different things. But when we think of the Big Three automakers, or the Big Four accounting firms, or the Big Ten athletic conference, we tend to think of directly competitive organizations.

These are not that, at least not yet.

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on November 19, 2015.