Who will be the autonomous car leaders?

I've got a little money to invest, and I feel like putting it into companies related to the autonomous car industry.  We can include electric cars.

Who do you think the leaders will be?

The quick ones that come to mind for me are Tesla, Ford, and maybe Lyft.  But there are so many others...

Certainly there are tech companies developing the small components behind the scenes (Apps, hardware, software, sensors, etc) that will be important... I am clueless on these.  

What do you think?

In reply to SVreX :

You are right, This is an area where if you select right real money will be made.  

Whatever you do select the opposite of what I do.  When I see these opportunities develop  I’ve always picked the wrong one.  

Google's Waymo has a ton more fully autonomous miles than anybody else right now, and the lowest rate of human intervention too. GM is next, but a ways back. Buying either one seems like a decent way to get a slice of the autonomous action and still have something to fall back on too.

Tesla has a ton of customer vehicles in the field collecting data, but they're semi-autonomous. They're saying they'll have full autonomy in the next couple of years, but don't plan on using any lidar at all. This has brought out tons of skeptics and critics since lidar is thought to be the only consistent way to see in less than ideal conditions where visibility may be impacted. When you consider Tesla's history with semi autonomous driving, and the numerous other ways the company could fail I'm not convinced it's a great investment opportunity. Share price is the lowest it's been in awhile, but it still seems overpriced to me. Their first quarter losses were large enough that they wiped out all of the profit from the previous 2 quarters, and nearly all of the profit they've ever made.

For the autonomous car itself, I'd be banking on Google, Tesla, and Ford to be the the most successful.

Full autonomy is never going to happen without massive infrastructure improvements, and that's from the tech leaders themselves.

I would invest in the sensor manufacturers and the contractors who will be building the infrastructure itself. Think road works, concrete, stoplights, and even line paint.

WRT the system, IMHO, the 5G part will be one of the most important things, since it will be able to handle all of the cars talking to each other.

But I can't say that I'm totally sold that consumers will embrace it as much as anticipated.  

I didn’t actually ask if it would work or not, whether consumers would embrace it, or whether it was feasible in any way shape or form. 

I asked who the leaders would be. 

I am interested in a few opinions of some companies, and perhaps why you think they may have some success. Even if it is success in an industry that will never get off the ground. 

People told me not to buy Apple when I did too. It was at it’s peak, no new ideas, blah, blah, blah. I made my own choices. And it has increased 5X since then. 

I have made my decision. I’d like to invest in a few companies connected to the autonomous car industry. Any suggestions?

Who asked for autonomous cars anyway? Not me. I feel like the frog in the pot of water on the stove. It is heating around me and by the time it is boiling it will be far too late to help myself.  As the technology improves the driving public will loose driving rights piece by piece until all we are allowed to do by ourselves is open the door. I recognize self driving is great for regulatory bodies, and will ultimately save trillions on everything from policing to pot hole repair, but at a massive price to our independence. I am old enough that it will likely not greatly affect me, but I can see my kids right to drive independently sharply curtailed, and my grandkids will most likely never be able to drive themselves around.

In reply to SVreX :

Again, the infrastructure around the industry. The 5G that the cars need to communicate, the lidar manufacturer, etc. They are going to make money no matter which car company "wins".

Tesla has the most real world semi-autonomous, but Waymo has the strongest sensor suite (ie - most capable). Ford was making strong gains, but they just announced a pull back.

Hi SVreX,

Alright, we’re pretty confident that a few companies will be cashing in big on autonomous vehicles in the near future but it’s anybody’s guess who they’ll be and once it’s clear, it’ll be too late to capture much of the gains.

In a case like this, ETF’s / mutual funds are a sound choice as the losers tend to die young before they can significantly dilute the gains coming from the winners.

The best case against ETF’s / mutual funds in a situation like this is that you don’t get the bragging rights of being a genius investor (weaponizing investing is costly – it’s only purpose should be to make you money).

Here are some ETF’s to consider

Take care,

Brett

+1 for what RX Reven said. Trying to bet on an individual company is risky gambling, and the gains would likely be quite short-lived since competitors would be close behind.

In the long run it'll be the big parts manufacturers like Bosch and Nippon Denso, as with any other car part...

Hmmm.  Autonomous cars as leaders?  I hadn't even considered it, but given the high percentage of nutballs currently in government, it's altogether likely that some district will elect an autonomous car to public office in the near future.

+1 for ETF

If I were betting on some companies to have success in that area, a lot of them would be major blue chip stocks that are pretty diverse (compared to strictly autonomous) anyway (Microsoft, Google, Nvidia). 

1988RedT2 said:

Hmmm.  Autonomous cars as leaders?  I hadn't even considered it, but given the high percentage of nutballs currently in government, it's altogether likely that some district will elect an autonomous car to public office in the near future.

I would rather have an autonomous car as redacted than what we currently have.

In reply to ProDarwin :

I lol'ed

My money is on Google/Waymo.  Literally.  I've been up on Google for lots of reasons other than Waymo for a while though.

I think Tesla has a rocky road ahead due to it's current and future profitability problems as an electric car manufacturer.  Ford may be a good bet, but Uber or Lyft might be a better oportunity for a big return (or loss).

Also, I wouldn't take investment advice from me or anyone else on the internet.  My track record on stock picking is "mixed", lol.

I'd google up Nvidia (the video card guys) involvement in the sensor processing.  I've read something that seem like they're pretty heavily involved in the backend equipment to make this all possible.

There's a few different Lidar manufacturers, but from what I've seen, they're all sort of pushing the same tech and there's no definite winners there.  Dunno though.  There's also the possibility that the future won't involve Lidar (like Tesla).  That level of component selection seems risky to invest in, but what do I know? :)

The only thing special that Nvidia is doing is building computers specialized for running autonomous cars in a form that's meant to survive being installed in a car. So if you want something off the shelf to run your autonomous car, they're your best option. Nothing that AMD or even Intel couldn't get into if they wanted to, and nothing Bosch couldn't start doing next week from an assembly perspective.

GameboyRMH said:

The only thing special that Nvidia is doing is building computers specialized for running autonomous cars in a form that's meant to survive being installed in a car. So if you want something off the shelf to run your autonomous car, they're your best option. Nothing that AMD or even Intel couldn't get into if they wanted to, and nothing Bosch couldn't start doing next week from an assembly perspective.

That's opposite the press releases I've read on it, but you would expect that based on the source :)  My understanding was that they were way ahead of a ATI on the ai/processing side.   And one investors' blog that I was reading mentioned that since ATI is owned by AMD, they're unlikely to invest heavily in the market until there's a unified direction, whereas Nvidia is still independant and currently working on it..   But I really haven't read that closely into it.

Just be aware, because of how the stock market and investors work.  If there is a company that is set to take the lead for autonomous cars, the investors are well aware of it and it's stock will reflect that (their future value, not their current).  This is why the stocks of companies like Tesla seem to go wildly out of control high.

FWIW I'm invested in both Tesla (since 16) and Ford (since 17). I chose Garmin as my sensor manufacturer in 18 and have done real nice on them.

Tesla has the smarts , but Elon is too scary for long term, 

Google has the AI ,  think of all the stupid tests you took on website passwords that asked , "which of these photos has a street sign"

Ford , Gm, VW , Mercedes , Toyota and whoever the top Chinese car maker is can build the cars

Now who are the customers ?

Google is eons ahead of everyone else. Waymo vans are everywhere in the valley and they're pretty competent drivers at this point.

Regardless, the problem is Waymo owned by the world's largest advertising company. You can buy their stock but it's hard to disentangle Waymo from the rest. 

I'm wondering how long autonomous vehicles will be permitted to go until the insurance/autorepair industry lobbies start against them.  If the rate of accidents drops as much as projected those industries stand to loose a lot.

As for who leader would be I would look at whomever is doing the most in over the road type trucks.  Unlike automotive who have only a small percentage of the end users being paid to drive and therefore most likely to be replaced by automatic driving, trucking is near 100% of buyers would be interested in automation.  I suspect adoption will be very high and very rapid in that industry hence larger profits for Mr investor.

Re: etf

I think it is a good idea, but it both reduces risk and reduces reward. Also, I have been looking for something like that and have reveiwed many of those linked ETFs. They are big on existing large companies, like Ford, Google, Toyota, etc. The potential for major growth is lower in my eyes.

Sv- I am feeling like Tesla now is where Apple was in 2007/8/9. Many thought they had peaked, and they had just had a large multi year run and stagnated for a while. Then they went from 100 to 700 or something over the next 5 years.

My (small) money is on Tesla, but I also think they are already too big to see the 10-50x gains I think would be possible if you catch the right company early.

That's a long way of saying I don't know, but I have been asking myself this question for a while.

What I really wish I knew is who is going to become the solar panel production leader.

In reply to Robbie :

Well, Elon Musk has his hands in solar panels too!

I’m with you on your thoughts about Tesla and ETFs