Right now of the 6 largest "Auto" companies, only GM and Ford are really car companies. The top 3 ( and 5th largest) are more like battery companies, one of which happens to sell some cars. Personally, I find battery technology, electricity generation tech and LED technology some of the most profoundly exciting innovation around, but for some reason we get bogged down with things that seem more life changing like 3D printing, voice, robots etc. It's often the dull looking stuff, e.g graphene, API's, containerization, scalable architecture, which is going to change the world the most. * edit- it’s been kindly pointed out below this misses most Car companies ( like Toyota/Daimler/ VW/Honda ) so I’m not sure why the chart left those off. But the point is still quite valid I hope :) …see more