3 Overlooked Autonomous Vehicle Stocks Investors Should Jump On

The article argues AV upside is coming fast, citing robotaxi growth to ~$415B by 2035 and projections that autonomous trucks could be ~40% of U.S. semitruck miles by 2040 (Morningstar) with cheaper per-mile costs by 2028 (per the article). It highlights Aurora’s plan to transition from revenue generation in 2025 to per-mile payments starting in 2027, and Mobileye’s ~70% global ADAS market share plus an ~$24.5B eight-year auto revenue pipeline (+42%). For Uber, the main swing factor is high uncertainty: Waymo’s stated intent to dissolve the partnership could reduce Uber’s AV upside even as the stock is framed as undervalued on existing cash flow and profit growth.

Analysis

The market is likely over-indexing on headline AV TAM and underpricing which layer actually captures economics. MBLY is the cleaner risk-adjusted exposure because embedded software in the OEM stack creates switching costs and makes the business more annuity-like than a pure mobility platform; the upside is a gradual multiple re-rate if ADAS content keeps rising, not a one-quarter revenue surprise. AUR is the opposite: the equity is effectively a financing option on execution, so the stock should trade on paid-mile conversion, safety records, and fleet commitments rather than long-dated market-size estimates.

Second-order losers are incumbent freight economics, not just the obvious autonomy peers. If autonomous highway miles get meaningfully cheaper than human-driven miles over the next 1-3 years, pricing pressure should hit carriers and brokers first through lower spot rates, then through weaker contract renewals; that is a late-cycle margin issue for names like KNX, JBHT, and CHRW. The main near-term falsifier for AUR is any safety incident or delay in the transition to fleet-owned hardware/software monetization; for MBLY, it is OEM build-rate weakness or pipeline conversion slowing enough that the market stops paying for visibility.

Contrarian view: consensus may be too bullish on pure-play AV monetization speed and too bearish on platform intermediaries. UBER can still be a beneficiary if it becomes the default demand aggregator for multiple AV fleets, but the disintermediation risk is real because AV operators will eventually want direct customer relationships and lower take rates. Over 6-18 months, the best risk/reward may come from the software layer with embedded distribution rather than the fleet owner; until there is hard evidence of autonomous miles scaling profitably, this remains a catalyst-driven stock selection story, not a broad thematic beta trade.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long MBLY on 5-10% pullbacks or after a weak sector tape; 6-12 month hold. Thesis: embedded OEM position should support a higher quality multiple if pipeline converts. Invalidate if auto revenue backlog stops growing or management cuts forward guide.
• No aggressive common-equity long in AUR yet; wait for verifiable fleet contracts and commercial-mile data. If forced to express the view, prefer a small defined-risk call spread into 2027 milestones rather than cash equity.
• Relative value: long MBLY / short UBER if the market starts pricing UBER as an AV winner without evidence of durable take-rate protection. Risk/reward is best if partner disintermediation becomes the dominant narrative over the next 1-3 quarters.
• Watchlist short on freight beneficiaries of labor displacement: KNX, JBHT, and CHRW on any confirmed step-up in autonomous highway deployment. This is a 6-18 month trade, not a near-term catalyst, and should be sized only after hard evidence that autonomous miles are scaling.
• Set an alert on AUR for any accident, regulatory delay, or missed transition milestone; those are the events that would reset the equity story and likely cause the largest drawdown.