Tesla leads, Jaguar Land Rover lags in digital-focused ranking of automakers

Electric-first automakers such as Tesla and Nio outshined established brands such as Jaguar Land Rover and Toyota in a new ranking that grades companies on their software skills.

The Digital Automaker Index was created by consultancy Gartner to assess automakers in eight software-centric-areas. Those scores are tabulated to come up with an overall ranking, which this year covers 20 automakers.

The categories include culture and leadership, talent, architectures, connected vehicle, autonomous driving, electrification, smart cockpit and online sales potential.

The core goal of the index is to determine which brands are in the best position to monetize their software capabilities, which will be an essential part of their future success.

Stellantis, for example, plans to generate about 20 billion euros (about $22 billion) by 2030 from software-enabled product offerings and subscriptions. The automaker, however, ranks No. 14 out of 20 in Gartner's index  (see table below).

Stellantis ranking underlines a key problem that faces most long established brands. They are not achieving their promised evolution into technology companies from automakers fast enough.

"If they don't address this it will just deteriorate. Then, one day, it might be game over," Gartner analyst Pedro Pacheco, who is one of the creators of the index, said in an interview.

U.S., Chinese brands lead

Tesla finished No. 1 followed by China's Nio and Xpeng, with U.S. EV startups Rivian and Lucid rounding out the top five.

Pacheco said that companies with a software-first corporate culture scored higher than those that are still talking about becoming technology companies.

For instance, Tesla and Nio got top scores in the culture and leadership category because they have "a high number of leadership members with strong experience in the digital world," according to the index. Tesla and Nio also got the maximum score of five points for having a management structure where the chief information and chief digital officers report directly to the CEO.

If the CEO is directly involved with the CIO and CDO it put the companies in a better position to "take strategic decisions that lead to better software monetization," according to the index.

Nio Executive Vice President and Chairman of Product Committee Mark Zhou said at this year’s Shanghai auto show that he and company founder and CEO William Li meet every week to discuss technology matters,

Online sales

Another key category is online sales because Pacheco said dealers are interested in selling cars, not the brand's different software offerings. Therefore automakers need to excel here if they want to monetize their software offerings.

"If an automaker is not very good in terms of selling online, then they will have great difficulties selling software," Pacheco said.

Making up the bottom of the list in descending order were Honda, Toyota, SAIC Motor, Mazda and JLR.

Pacheco said Gartner plans to update the ranking annually, using it as a barometer to measure how brands are doing, adding that even the brands that are on top in 2023 have room for improvement.