(Bloomberg) – The line between the technology andautomotive industries is blurring.
|The rise of rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft means that transportation isbeing tied ever more closely to your cell phone, while autonomousdriving technology is turning your car into a computer. But thesedevelopments are expensive: Carmakers' R&D budgets jumped 61%,to $137 billion from 2010 to 2014.
|Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Officer SergioMarchionne thinks it makes no sense for carmakers to spendbillions of dollars developing competing, yet largely identicalsystems. To share some of the risk — and the cost — the incumbentautomotive giants and their would-be disruptors are teaming up inan ever-growing, ever more complex series of alliances.
|So Fiat Chrysler, for instance, has paired up with Google todevelop 100 self-driving minivans, and is indiscussions with Uber about a similar venture. Google has, in turn,invested in Uber, as have Toyota, Microsoft and Tata, owner ofJaguar Land Rover. Bill Ford, chairman of the eponymous carmaker,has meanwhile invested in Lyft, as has General Motors, and Lyft has partnered withChina's Didi, itself the subject of a $1 billion investment fromApple.
|Lucrative prize
The prize is lucrative, and the carmakers want to ensure thatsoftware players don't win the lion's share of it. McKinseyestimates that rideshare and onboard-data services could generatean additional $1.5 trillion of annual automotive revenue by 2030,adding to the $5.2 trillion from traditional car sales andservices.
|And it's attractive for consumers too: It costs an average of$8,558 per year to own a car in the U.S., but each vehicle is usedjust 4% of the time. Ridesharing in an autonomous vehicle couldensure that cars are always in use.
|Related: Carmakers aren't going to let Google monopolizeself-driving car software
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