Aswan, Egypt.<\/p>\n
It was a four-lane road in the middle of the Egyptian desert. It was baking hot.<\/p>\n
And my taxi had broken down.<\/p>\n
I was an idiot to take this taxi to begin with. The ramshackle vehicle looked like it would break down at any moment.<\/p>\n
However, I needed to get to the Aswan airport fast, and this was the only taxi I could find. So, I jumped in.<\/p>\n
My driver seemed a bit shifty, and I’d been warned to watch out for setups where I might get robbed, kidnapped for ransom or extorted for money.<\/p>\n
And now I was in the middle of nowhere with a driver I didn’t trust.<\/p>\n
The driver was trying to get the car started again. I kept looking all around to see if this was a setup. Was I about to get robbed… or kidnapped?<\/p>\n
Luckily, nothing happened. The driver literally wired the car into starting again. It sputtered a couple more times before we got to the airport, but I made it safely. Still, the driver’s face sticks in my head… and in my gut, I know I got lucky.<\/p>\n
But very soon, we won’t need to worry about the character of the person driving a car… or the reliability of the car.<\/p>\n
That’s because self-driving cars have gone from a wacko sci-fi-like idea that most people believed would take 10 or 15 years to come… to something that we’re seeing on streets today.<\/p>\n
The Next Leap Forward in Tech<\/b><\/p>\n
Last week, ride-share company Uber introduced its self-driving car in Pittsburgh. Uber’s cars are Volvo XC90 SUVs retrofitted with electronic components that make them self-driving.<\/p>\n
Now, it’s still early in the development of this technology. Uber’s cars will actually be manned by a person who can take control of the vehicle when it hits a situation that it’s not programmed for or if there’s an emergency. It’s a bit like autopilot on a plane with a person at the controls just in case.<\/p>\n
Uber’s self-driving initiative is going to have 100 cars as taxis in the streets of Pittsburgh. If you use the Uber app, you could get a self-driving car sent to you the same way you do now when placing a ride request.<\/p>\n
Uber is looking to test the technology on passengers, pedestrians and other drivers in real-life, real-time conditions… and get data to adjust and improve everyone’s experience of using these cars.<\/p>\n
Self-Driving Cars: More Than a Fad<\/b><\/p>\n
Many people are skeptical about self-driving cars ever working out. They believe that it’s a technological fad. And if it does work out, it’ll take 20 or 25 years to pan out.<\/p>\n
Personally, I believe that self-driving cars will become a usable reality in the next three to five years. For sure, it’ll be a novelty at first, like many new technology experiences of the past. However, the convenience of being able to take a car ride to your destination without having to worry about traffic, routes, weather hazards, accidents, road rage, irritation, boredom or potential threats from the driver is a powerful factor that’s going to make self-driving cars a massive hit product.<\/p>\n
By a massive hit product, I mean that it’ll take off and be something that people take to in the same way that people took to the iPhone and iPad.<\/p>\n
And clearly the stock market agrees with me.<\/p>\n
That’s why you’re seeing stocks associated with self-driving cars such as Nvidia shoot up by 175% in the last year. Another success story is Mobileye, which is up 80% since February.<\/p>\n
The keys to self-driving cars are sensors and data… and then computers to process this data. These things form the essence of a revolution that’s taking place right now called the Internet of Things mega trend. And it’s going to change the way we transport ourselves around the world.<\/p>\n
There’s big money to be made both in self-driving cars and the Internet of Things mega trend. However, you can’t buy into Uber directly because it’s a private company. And you can’t blindly buy into stocks like Nvidia and Mobileye without doing proper research.<\/p>\n
One way you can get in is to buy the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSE Arca: SMH)<\/strong>, which has broad exposure to self-driving cars and the Internet of Things mega trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aswan, Egypt. It was a four-lane road in the middle of the Egyptian desert. It was baking hot. And my taxi had broken down. I was an idiot to take this taxi to begin with. The ramshackle vehicle looked like it would break down at any moment. However, I needed to get to the Aswan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2727,4258,560,1515,4259],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techfeatured.com\/automotive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}