General Motors quickly jumped on the self-driving car bandwagon ahead of many rivals. The automaker has plans to commercialize a self-driving service as early as next year.
With the aggressive strategy, Citigroup analyst Itay Michaeli thinks GM is underappreciated, and current shareholders will be rewarded in the near future, according to a Monday CNBC report. Currently, GM shares hover around $38 as of this morning, but Michaeli doesn’t think it’s out of the question for the automaker’s stock to hit $70 per share in the next 12 months.
And after that? Well over $100 per share as GM grows its self-driving car fleets and services.
“We believe General Motors remains an underappreciated leader in the future autonomous vehicle network space,” Michaeli said. “Establishing large autonomous vehicle subscriptions, even as a substitute to traditional leasing, could become a major profit enhancer for low-margin segments like cars and even crossovers.”
GM’s largest rival is arguably Waymo, which plans for a self-driving taxi service of sorts sometime this year in Arizona. GM, meanwhile, has not disclosed where it plans to roll out its first commercial service. Waymo has pulled ahead as the leader autonomous-vehicle leader, but recent reports suggest GM and its Cruise Automation subsidiary have quickly caught up in real-world and simulated autonomous miles.
Comments
The thing is… you say “Waymo” and people say “huh?” or “the Frisbee people??”…..you say “GM” and people know who you’re talking about, that makes a difference in trusting an automated car.
Self driving vehicles are the future, what’s highly debatable is once the industry figures out what works and what doesn’t, will the norm be privately owned vehicles or commercially owned 12 passenger vehicles?
“once the industry figures out what works and what doesn’t, will the norm be privately owned vehicles or commercially owned 12 passenger vehicles?”
It’ll be wherever the money is.