Self-Driving Trucks: 3 Pure Play Stocks to Avoid For Now

Our recent piece on finding the next Tesla suggested that future upside for autonomy may trump the electric vehicle thesis. That’s what ARK Invest seems to think as they believe Tesla’s robotic taxi will generate more than half the company’s profits by 2026. But it’s not clear that autonomy on city streets is the best place to start. Long-haul trucking seems like a much easier use case to tackle since there’s a lot less chaos happening on highways. Given the shortage of truck drivers, it makes economic sense as well. The American Trucking Association reported a shortage of 80,000 truck drivers in 2021, which is expected to reach a shortage of 160,000 drivers by 2030.

Tesla is developing an electric semi-truck that will utilize their assisted driving functionality, but you don’t need an electric truck for autonomy. A year ago, we wrote about 4 Self-Driving Semi-Truck Stocks for Investors, three of which were going public using special-purpose-acquisition-companies (SPACs). That number is now down to two. Late last year, the Plus AI SPAC merger fell through, though the company is