There’s one particular development set to outline the automotive trade, in keeping with investor and former Tesla board member Steve Westly: self-driving automobiles. And he says traders ought to take word. “Waymo and autonomous vehicles are the future, flat out, end of story,” Westly, who sat on Tesla’s board between 2007 and 2010, advised CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday. “And they’re coming quickly. In the San Francisco Bay area where I live, it seemed like science fiction just five years ago. Now, you see them everywhere. After you’ve done it once or twice, you completely forget there is no driver in the driver’s seat. This is the future,” he added. While the penetration of autonomous, or self-driving, automobiles is presently low, Goldman Sachs expects the variety of these business automobiles on U.S. roads to develop from 1,500 presently to round 35,000 by 2030. This would see the burgeoning trade seize round 8% of all U.S. ridesharing journeys and generate $7 billion in annual income, in keeping with the funding financial institution. “Make no mistake, whoever wins this technology battle is likely to have the most valuable vehicle company in the world,” Westly stated. “It’s coming faster than people think, not just in North America. China is moving ahead. Full bore competition is coming. Price is coming down, and it’s a good thing for the public, because it’s going to enable seniors, people with vision difficulties, et cetera, and women tend to prefer them because they’re safer,” he added. Tesla’s positioning The self-driving race is presently dominated by Alphabet’s Waymo, which is current in U.S. cities San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. The firm has “done something extraordinary,” in keeping with Westly. “They’re not only going from 12 million rides provided this year to 24 million next year; by the end of this year, they will have permitting — the first autonomous vehicle company to do so — to provide rides on freeways, not just in the cities. Once you can do cities and the freeways, that really opens the door to going global. This is going to be an interesting smackdown, as we say in the U.S.,” he stated. For Tesla to compete, it should present that its promise of autonomous automobiles is “real” and that its much-hyped Optimus humanoid robots are coming, “and they’re a little behind on that,” Westly stated. “So that’s the thing to keep an eye out if you’re an investor,” he added. Tesla’s robotaxis have a presence in Austin, Texas. They are additionally being rolled out in the Bay Area, California, and have been accepted to develop to Arizona. The EV maker’s shares are up round 6.4% over the yr thus far, though that is properly beneath the Nasdaq Composite’s 18% achieve. Investors Tuesday can be searching for the firm to comply with up on the tease movies it launched over the weekend, amid hypothesis that it might be gearing as much as launch a brand new automotive . Carmakers should go international Europe can be hoping to become involved in self-driving automotive growth and adoption. “The automotive industry is a European pride, a new technology can save jobs and breathe new life into the sector. So the future of cars, and the cars of the future must be produced here in Europe,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen stated on stage at Italian Tech Week on Friday. Von der Leyen introduced {that a} coalition of 60 Italian mayors had “already expressed their interests” in organising a community of European cities the place “the first self driving cars can hit the road.” But for Westly, the successful carmaker can be current in each market. “To have a great car company in the past, you needed to dominate one of the three big markets, China, North America, Europe,” he stated. “Now the rest of the world is becoming the important marketplace. Are you selling cars in India, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam? And that’s where BYD is really excelling with their $20,000 car. Tesla needs something in that market. If they’re going to challenge globally, we’ll see how quickly they can do it.”