[Vivtek]

Instead, it will simply be the autonomous BMW, Volkswagen, or Daimler. Or Tesla. It's not as though Google is the only company in the world working on autonomous driving. They're just the only one the American tech media has noticed.

[ars]

You didn't read the article did you?

There is no reason to assume those European companies have solved this problem anymore than Google has. They most likely will come up with the exact same "solution" with the same limitations.

[Vivtek]

No. I know what the Europeans are actually researching. Google seems usually to think in terms of the knowledge they gain from universal data availability. Driving, to Google, is an outgrowth of mapping.

The Europeans are looking at a scaled approach of driver assistance. There are cases where automation is already making driving safer and easier, on the road right now in production cars. It's a much more holistic and interesting approach, and while it will make use of data if available, it's not locked into it.

So no, they're not coming up with "the solution" - they're coming up with a wide variety of solutions, with much fewer limitations in the aggregate.