Goldman’s advice on playing autonomous vehicles as catalysts near
With the autonomous vehicle (AV) industry poised to grow in coming years, several stocks could be a way to play the trend, according to Goldman Sachs. “Autonomous vehicles have arrived for both rideshare and trucking,” analyst Mark Delaney wrote in a note on Monday. “The key focus for investors is now on the pace at which AVs will grow and how big the market will become, rather than if the technology works.” Delaney estimates that the U.S. rideshare market filled by AVs will hit $7 billion in 2030, equating to 8% of the total market. The analyst noted that there are already more than 1,500 robotaxis on the road from Waymo, a division of Google-parent Alphabet . Commercial operations may expand to seven cities by the end of 2026, up from four today, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, Texas. “With this roll out from Waymo, coupled with planned launches from others including Tesla and Zoox, we expect over [1,800] commercial autonomous vehicles in the U.S. by the end of 2025 and [35,000] in 2030,” the analyst also wrote, adding that AV scaling is being driven by safety and falling costs. Risks overdone Against this rapid growth forecast, Delaney said investors should keep an eye on both stocks that could benefit as well as buy-rated companies where investor concerns about risks from AVs could be overdone. Here are some of the stocks that Goldman highlighted. Tesla is one standout in anticipation of it debuting its robotaxi service in Austin later this month. CEO Elon Musk told CNBC’s David Faber in May that Tesla plans to start serving the Texas state capital with 10 vehicles, eventually expanding to thousands if the launch is successful. “We believe the degree to which Tesla can have differentiated scale and technology will be key for its long-term profitability in the robotaxi business,” Delaney wrote. “We expect Tesla to meet its objective to start AV operations this summer in Austin, although we also believe that Tesla’s use of certain tools (including geofencing and local specific parameters) as well as a need to validate/improve on the technology for wider unsupervised use will limit how fast Tesla can scale its AVs in the near-term.” Delaney is neutral on Tesla stock, saying he has a more “moderate” outlook for the company’s profits than Tesla’s own forward guidance. Still, he believes Tesla’s earnings can improve in the medium- to longer-term as a result of full self-driving (FSD) and AV technology. TE Connectivity could also benefit from AV growth, Delaney said, adding that the company that enables the transfer of data, power and signals “has incremental content opportunities tied to the high speed data connectivity that is needed for partly and fully autonomous vehicles.” “We believe that connectors for data connectivity make up about 10% of the total connector value per vehicle, and represent an attractive growth opportunity,” Delaney wrote. Delaney has a buy rating on the stock, while his $184 price target implies more than 13% upside from Friday’s close of $166. Shares have already surged almost 14% this year, far outpacing the broader market, and pay a dividend yield of 1.75%. A bright future notwithstanding, Delaney said AV ridesharing is still in its “very early days,” leaving concerns surrounding AV risk to companies like Lyft potentially overblown and, in any case, “more than already discounted” in the stock. In fact, Delaney expects that AV operators and fleet owners will “continue to enter into partnerships in the coming years” and that Lyft could play a role in the broader hybrid and AV ecosystem by generating demand and managing vehicle fleets, for example. Delaney has a buy rating on Lyft, and his $20 price target implies more than 35% upside from Friday’s close. Lyft his soared 31% in the past three months, and is 14% higher so far in 2025.
