We Won't Turn Back the Clock on Self-Driving Cars By Sean Michael Cummings
The evening began with a self-driving cab... and ended with a crew of robots dancing beneath a disco ball. It wasn't a sci-fi movie. It was a real product launch last Thursday night... Tesla's much-hyped "We, Robot" event. The event gave the market a drama-filled glimpse of Tesla's newest product prototypes. And the biggest announcement of the evening was the Cybercab – the futuristic car that kicked off the proceedings. The Cybercab has no ignition or steering wheel because it doesn't need a human to run. The car simply drives to the passengers' destination by itself. Autonomous cars like the Cybercab have been in the works for more than two decades. But development has been slow and full of setbacks. Tesla has postponed its Cybercab reveal at least six times since 2019. And even founder Elon Musk has started making fun of himself for how often his "full self-driving" predictions have been pushed further into the future. In other words, robotaxis have been nothing but a fantasy for a long time. So you'd be forgiven for assuming last week's "We, Robot" event was still more empty hype... even after the splashy reveal. But focusing only on Tesla is the wrong move today. Other companies are leading the way on this trend. And self-driving technology is much closer to becoming mainstream than most folks expect today. In fact, it's already on our doorstep...
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Tesla wasn't the only company to offer big robotaxi news this year. The Cybercab's debut came on the heels of two massive announcements from Tesla rival Alphabet (GOOGL). Alphabet has spent 15 years developing a self-driving fleet of its own, under a subsidiary called Waymo. Unlike Tesla's Cybercab, Waymo's service has been giving fully autonomous rides to the public since 2020. Waymo ride hailing is now offered in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. And Waymo plans to spread to Austin and Atlanta early next year. The pilot programs to date have given Waymo a ton of real-world testing metrics. And last quarter, Waymo shared two astonishing data points... The first bombshell was a safety study released in July. The peer-reviewed journal Heliyon used insurance claims to compare Waymo cars to human drivers... The study's results were shocking. When no human driver was at the wheel, property-damage claims plummeted by 76%... And bodily injury claims plunged by 100%. In other words, Waymo's self-driving cars are much, much safer than their human counterparts. And that may explain Waymo's second shocking report in August... That month, Waymo published data about its growth in the U.S. marketplace. It revealed that its weekly robotaxi rides doubled in the third quarter alone. Taken together, these two developments paint a wildly bullish backdrop for self-driving tech. Autonomous cars are proving themselves to be harmless... and consumers are all too happy to use them for transit. It's still unclear who will win the race for autonomous driving. But after last Thursday's "We, Robot" event, expect the tech to become an even bigger part of the cultural conversation. The self-driving-car industry is estimated to generate between $300 billion and $400 billion in revenue by 2035. Today, most folks still think it's a fantasy... But the data is showing incredible promise. Self-driving tech is safe. It's highly in demand. And in Waymo's case, it's already on the streets. So whether or not you're a Tesla bull, autonomous driving as an investment trend deserves your attention today. This genie isn't going back in the bottle. Driverless cars could be a commonplace reality much sooner than you think. Good investing, Sean Michael Cummings Further Reading "Apple's iPhone is as close to a necessity as you'll find in our tech-centric world," Marc Chaikin writes. Tech products like Apple's iPhone go through "cycles" as sales rise and fall. Sales have stagnated in recent years – but that could actually signal an opportunity... Read more here. Musk may soon bring his Starlink Internet service to South Africa. This is big news for Tesla... But it's part of an even bigger story for Africa's biggest economy, where a recent election has set up a historic investing opportunity... Learn more here. |
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