Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz’s F015 autonomous electric car is pictured ahead of the press preview at The North American International Automobile Show (Photo by JEWEL SAMADAFP/Getty Images )



Automakers are serious about the road to self-driving cars and now is the time for investors to start thinking about how to cash in on the coming revolution.


That’s the basic message of a research report issued this week by Brian Johnson, analyst for Barclays, on the heels of the press preview of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Johnson notes that “no fewer than eight” companies talked about their strides in the race to self-driving technology.


Ford joins Nissan in predicting it can commercialize self-driving cars by 2020. Tesla Motors says it will be first with a fully self-driving car, sometime after 2020. And when it comes to suppliers, investors should keep their eye on Mobileye and its single-camera technology. Delphi, he says, had a self-driving car on display.


Semi-autonomous driving, cars have that partial self-driving features, are “inflecting and becomingmuch more of a reality.”