The inverse is also important. If you "invent" the best tech possible but have no way to get it onto the road -- is it the best?
The way I see it, at least in the US, it's really GM vs Ford (which is Cruise vs Argo). Waymo has a management crisis and lost most of their top talent, and Uber is hemorrhaging talent (and money). Apart from that there are various startups but I don't believe they'll ever get the money necessary to compete with the big players - even Google gave up on that front.
Outside the US I'm excited to see what happens with Volvo, which says they'll have 100 stage 4 vehicles delivered to customers by the end of the year.