Nevertheless, a vehicle that drives itself safely remains something of a Holy Grail for many an automaker. And finding the Holy Grail, it turns out, doesn’t come cheap. A new Bloomberg report (via Autoblog) suggests that automakers have spent no less than $75 billion to date in developing driverless vehicles.

Bloomberg‘s analysis takes a somewhat skeptical approach to the amount of money spent, citing “scant sign of meaningful revenue emerging from robo-car services after all that cash incineration.”

One thing seems to be certain: it’s taking a lot longer to get to a fully driverless (or, to put it another way, fully self-driving) automobile than many in the space had anticipated. The article goes on to detail an array of responses to the current situation — ranging from some companies, such as the driverless taxi company Cruise, seeking to expand and others pondering consolidation.