Nvidia, Qualcomm, and More Could Gain From Growing Autonomous Vehicle Market, BofA Says

Nvidia (NVDA), Qualcomm (QCOM), and Caterpillar (CAT) are some of the stocks Bank of America analysts said could be set to benefit from a growing autonomous vehicle market, along with robotaxi makers.

The analysts identified over two dozen stocks in a note to clients Tuesday for exposure to an expanding AV market they believe could be worth $1.2 trillion by 2040, including makers of sensors and chips, as well as insurance providers like Progressive (PGR).

Hardware giants Nvidia and Qualcomm could be set for growth as the makers of the “brain” behind the vehicles, Bank of America said, along with sensor and chipmakers like Aptiv (APTV) and Mobileye (MBLY).

Google parent Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo, Amazon’s (AMZN) Zoox, and Tesla (TSLA) are some of the companies with robotaxis in the U.S., and they are all buyers of Nvidia chips.

With Waymo partnerships, Uber (UBER) and Japan’s Toyota (TM) also made Bank of America’s list, as well as several Chinese firms including XPeng (XPEV), Pony AI (PONY), and Baidu (BIDU).

The analysts added that AV opportunities could extend to makers of agricultural equipment like Caterpillar, Deere & Co. (DE), and companies in freight, logistics, and public transport.

“Much of the attention and deployment of this technology have so far focused on the car. But other types of on- and off-road autonomous vehicles are beginning to emerge, indicating that anything that moves could be set for automation, vastly increasing the addressable market and potential of this disruptive technology,” they said.