Supposedly Google has spent $1.1bn between 2009 and 2015 [0], and Waymo has raised $5.5bn in outside funding, supposedly last valuing it at around $30bn. Cruise is apparently on track to burn ~$2bn/yr. Getting reliable figures on actual dollars invested to date on projects is much harder unfortunately. However, it seems like overall it's in the range of billions and likely less than $10bn for any individual project. [1]
As a few benchmarks, I was curious about the cost of the California HSR, Caltrain electrification, and the recent SFMTA Central Subway project.
The SFMTA Central Subway project was a 1.7 mile extension of an existing T line, and cost $1.95bn.
The California HSR's initial 171 mile segment is estimated to cost $35 billion with the final system estimated to be well north of $100bn.
The Caltrain electrification electrified 51 miles of the Caltrain network and introduces new EMU trains at the cost of $2.44bn.
From a bay area resident/layman perspective, the R&D cost for any self driving car project doesn't seem to be out of proportion compared to public transit. Even if we took the information's estimate of the whole industry burning $16bn so far, that'd only buy you half of the initial segment of the Cailfornia HSR, which doesn't make it seem like self-driving car research is that outlandish. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if full autonomous vehicles land before the HSR fulfills its full mission of LA <> SF in under 3 hours.
Bloated local projects like the central subway make self driving car investments a steal, with 1.7 miles of subway in SF costing the same ballpark as a semi-mature self driving car program.
[0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/google-has-spent-over-11-billion-o... [1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/money-pit-self-drivi...