Even discounting the overly optimistic expectations of the recent past, it’s clear that autonomous vehicles will have a major impact on the automotive and transportation industries. The AV era is not a question of if but of when, and the “when” varies by region and by AV use case.

This article will focus on how Europe is doing in AVs across multiple segments of the AV industry. Comparisons with the U.S. and China are included where data is available.

To get a basis for the comparisons, I have included a big picture of how the AV industry is likely to evolve in the next decade or so. This includes AV hardware and software technology along with the use cases, standards, and regulations shaping the AV market.

Table 1 summarizes the phases of AVs’ evolution. The timeline across the bottom doesn’t indicate specific years but starts around 2015 on the left and ends in the 2030 timeframe on the right.