To The Moon

Two leaders have emerged in autonomous-driving technology - $Alphabet(GOOG)$ and $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ and it’s helping the 2 stocks, in terms of their stock prices. Tesla plans to launch a self-driving robotaxi service at the end of 2025. Coming to a city near you. Alphabet’s self-driving robotaxi company Waymo already operates in 4 US cities. They are: Phoenix. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Austin. Atlanta (coming in 2025). Collectively they have completed more than 150,000 self-driving taxi rides a week. For 2025, Waymo plans to launch a robotaxi service in Atlanta. According to recent report by $Morgan Stanley(MS)$, Analyst, Brian Nowak - Waymo is expected to expand to more US cities: (see below) 3 cities (Miami & 2 other cities) in 2026. 4 cities in 2027. 5 citites in 2028. 6 cities in 2029. 7 cities in 2030. In total, Waymo will be making its presence felt, in 26 US cities from now until 2030. (see above) Future Growth / Estimation. Nowak sees Waymo recording one billion self-driving miles by the end of the decade. Through September 2024, Waymo had driven about 33 million miles with a passenger and no human driver, in the car. Self-driving advantages. Autonomous cars can give drivers some of their time back, but the most important justification for self-driving tech, and its expansion, is improved safety. Through the 33 million miles chalked up, Waymo reported roughly 80% fewer injury-causing accidents compared with an equivalent human driver. That is the difference between about 125 accidents involving human drivers vs about 27 accidents involving the self-driving robotaxi. Convinced now ? Nowak’s billion-miles estimate implies 125 million trips with some 23,000 robotaxis operating by 2030 to support the growing demand. Assuming the forecast is accurate, there is still a huge shortfall of 22,000 Waymo robotaxis, waiting to be operational as currently, Waymo has about 1,000 robotaxis in operation. There are 4 main factors, that could enhance autonomous driving even more: Smarter computers for AI. Easier access to airports and roads (infrastructure), Arrival at new cities, earlier & faster than planned. Higher-than-expected demand in existing city operations. Ratings / Price targets. (1) Waymo. Nowak rates Google stock at “Buy” with a $215 price target vs Average analyst price target for Alphabet stock is about $210. According to FactSet, overall, 80% of analysts covering Alphabet stock have “Buy” ratings vs average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 at about 55%. (2) Tesla. Nowak does not cover Tesla stock, instead Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas does. And he has rated the EV-maker shares at “Buy” with a $430 price target. Self-driving technology accounts for more than half of Jonas’ valuation. He models about 660 million self-driving miles logged by Tesla vehicles from now until 2030. Stock Price movement. Alphabet stock was up +0.57% (+$1.06 to $188.20) on Mon, 10 Feb 2025; while both S&P 500 and Dow Jones were up +0.38% and +0.67% respectively. Unfortunately, $188.20 is way off its peak based on Alphabet’s past 1 month performance. (see above) My viewpoints: (mine only) It is a strange post from Barron’s because it talked about Alphabet (Google) and Tesla being the front runners for self-driving. Yet the entire post is about Waymo’s robotaxi (Alphabet’s group of companies). The 33 million miles of commercial businesses clocked is the results of a lot of hardwork and fixes. One cannot but wonder how Tesla is going to play catchup, given that it has just issued yet another recall on nearly 240,000 EVs for issues surrounding a short-circuiting board that may make the rearview camera unusable. (see below) It has not even commenced properly conducted trial and already the hardwire is breaking down. I shudder to think which driver/s life will be sacrificed to line mr musk’s pocket, when approval is received for self-driving launch. However, the post is also ambiguous when it comes to the “billion-miles” estimates. The writer did not specify the conditions, where the estimates were derived. Assuming Tesla’s robotaxi launch is successful, it may siphon demand for Waymo’s robotaxi services, that means it will take a longer time for Nowak’s estimates to be met. If Tesla's robotaxi launch is successful, fewer people might use Waymo's and that could delay Nowak's estimates from coming true. Then again, based on history, Tesla has never been punctual in their delivery, so not really that worried, it should still be playing catch-up in 2025. Who knows, maybe into 2026 as well as Mr CEO is too busy at DOGE. When human lives are at stake, it is prudent not to roll out autonomous driving in neck-breaking pace, just for the sake of rolling out across US’s many cities. Must Read: Click on below titles to access. Repost to share, Like as encouragement ok. Thanks. US DeepSeek takes root. NVDA, OpenAI Doomed ? Mag 7 : Another Week, Another Dip ? Non Farm Payroll Stops AMZN From Falling ? Do you think Waymo is the leader when it comes to autonomous driving ? Do you think you will be the daredevil to always use Tesla’s self-driving feature when its approved ? If you find this post interesting, give it wings! ️ Repost and share the insights ? Do consider “Follow me” and get firsthand read of my daily new post. Thank you. @Daily_Discussion @TigerPM @TigerStars @Tiger_SG @TigerEvents