Once hardware is commoditized, software is everything. Actually, it isn’t everything. Data is, because data is the fuel that feeds self-driving technology, or, as Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stated, " data is the new oil ." The greatest AI in the world needs data—mountains and mountains of data it can turn into information to act upon.

Self-driving cars won’t become ubiquitous overnight. Different types of vehicles will propagate—on different software platforms, in different regions—based on local laws, all of which depend on wildly expensive, long-term lobbying efforts. Whichever platform/car conforms to local laws first—especially if they helped define those laws during R&D—wins.

By making technology only 1/10th of any given player’s score, numerous car manufacturers outrank even the most advanced Silicon Valley players, and would do so even if the formers’ R&D budgets dropped to zero.

That sounds like a pretty comprehensive set of criteria, but by giving them all equal weighting, Navigant presupposes the car industry will stay pretty much as it is, that self-driving cars will be built and marketed through existing channels, and that new channels/platforms will be controlled or owned by existing manufacturers.

What Does The Navigant Report Really Say? The report’s actual title is “Assessment of Strategy & Execution for 18 Companies Developing Automated Driving Systems.” The report is very impressive, but you don’t need to read past the abstract to recognize its inherent flaw. Here are the ten criteria by which Navigant ranked the players:

Here’s Navigant’s list by rank:

Ford GM Renault-Nissan Alliance Daimler VW Group BMW Waymo Volvo/Autoliv/Zenuity Delphi Hyundai Motor Group PSA Tesla ZF Toyota Honda Uber nuTonomy Baidu

If technology and data gathering were the only criteria, the list should look like this:

Waymo Tesla The other Americans The Germans Volvo Hyundai The Japanese FCA

Of course, it's difficult to find anyone who disputes Waymo’s advantage. One could debate swapping Waymo and Tesla’s rankings, but I’ll leave that to the experts on Twitter. Waymo and Tesla have gathered orders of magnitude more data than anyone else, but the precise nature of the data, the rate at which they’re gathering it, and the value of that data is difficult to ascertain.

What about George Hotz's Comma.ai, with nearly 1M miles of data, including video? Hard to say what that’s worth without knowing how much and what kind of data automakers have gathered. Maybe there’s a reason they’ve been so quiet on the data front.

What about government relations? Fairly opaque, but stealth startup Zoox’s example highlights the folly of trusting Navigant’s methodology. Former NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind just joined Zoox’s management team. I’d call that a pretty big advantage. Zoox has raised $290 million and is rumored to have drafted self-driving car legislation in multiple states.

Zoox isn’t even mentioned in the report.

Tier 1 suppliers Delphi and ZF are on it, but Bosch isn’t. Does NVIDIA deserve a spot? How much credit is Volvo getting from the Autoliv/Zenuity alliance? How much of BMW’s position is derived from the Intel/Mobileye partnership?

Imagine the same list for the computer industry. Would you place Foxconn on the same list as Apple and Dell, and declare Foxconn the loser? Of course not, and yet Navigant has ranked key suppliers in the self-driving “race” alongside manufacturers with whom they share few (if any) characteristics.

So who is really #1 in Self-Driving Cars?

This one’s easy. The company closest to delivering a Level 4 self-driving car—even if it’s geofenced. Why? Because multiple overlapping industries will realign overnight, from car rental to sharing platforms to public transportation. It will be exactly like bringing a gun to a knife fight (but without the guns or knives). Mobility is the watchword, and self-driving technology is a foundation element. Everyone will want in and nothing will be sacred. Whomever can deliver will be able to pick and choose their partners, as no one can afford to be left out. If Morgan Stanley is right when they say that only six car companies are likely to survive, then the only question is who will be happy to play Foxconn in exchange for the technology they lack.

By that standard, Waymo and Tesla are tied for first in the only race that matters: the mobility race. If it’s Waymo, they’ll be able to sign up everyone low on Navigant’s list (and unlisted players like FCA), forming an alliance eradicating any lead held by those higher up on the report. If it’s Tesla, their allegedly inflated stock price will justify itself, spike overnight, and crack open capital markets guaranteeing not only the survival the shorts love to question, but long-term dominance of a sector whose future shape remains unclear.

I'd bet on Waymo, who already have a partnership with FCA.

As Brad Templeton pointed out, Navigant’s rankings aren’t completely wrong, but a true leaderboard would have to include alliances whose true nature remains unclear, define all the players across the mobility continuum, and attempt to define the nature of “mobility” itself. Silicon Valley and traditional automakers need each other, but they don’t need all of each other. Beware reports with conclusions born in a vacuum, for that’s where billions of dollars are most likely to disappear.

Alex Roy is Editor-at-Large for The Drive, host of Autonocast.com and /DRIVE on NBC Sports, author of The Driver, and set the 2007 Transcontinental “Cannonball Run” Record in 31 hours & 4 minutes. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.