automakers in the archive

The archive holds 3 reports filed under automakers, spanning 2015–2016. The earliest is “Latest KPMG Report: Connectivity More Important Than Horsepower in Cars of the Future”; the most recent is “Self-Driving, Connected Cars Are The Big Buzz at Beijing Auto Show”. Original reporting came via Jennifer van der Kleut.

This period matters for a specific reason: it is when the industry's assumptions were set. Testing permits were first issued, the acquisitions that consolidated the perception layer closed, the regulatory frameworks still in force were drafted, and a great many confident deployment dates were published. Almost all of those dates passed without incident, which makes the contemporaneous record more useful now than it was at the time — it can be read against what actually happened.

Coverage under automakers overlaps most often with driverless cars, Technology, Apple and Google, which is a reasonable map of where the topic sat in the industry's attention.

For what the listed companies in this field did over the same period, the D20 index roster tracks the corporate side. For what has since been deployed on public roads, the deployment tracker records operators, cities and dates, and the research library holds the papers this reporting drew on.