[suddenexample]

Not sure about the "less funds" bit, but Google started funding self driving cars in 2009. The continuous investment in tech is just now starting to make the dream feasible - as far as I know self driving cars were never more than a side project for Uber and Lyft.

With Cruise gone now there's basically just Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla (bit controversial) that are the names thrown around when talking about self driving market share, and out of those only Waymo has a functional service.