Tesla because they are already shipping cars with self driving hardware and over the air software updates and seem competent in developing software for the car,

Tesla because they are already shipping cars with self driving hardware and over the air software updates and seem competent in developing software for the car, and also because of my experience using Autopilot on the Model S. Google because they are competent at software engineering and have the internet / maps advantage to build really "smart" self driving cars that can talk to each other, learn and send data back to server for other cars to use, etc. Competency developing software, not competency building vehicles will be the key factor here. Google will most likely find success licensing their technology to anybody rather than making their own cars. I could see Ford and GM getting some basic self driving software working by themselves but as the software gets more advanced and complex they'll really need a partner like Google.