Introducing The D20

Driverless Transportation is happy to announce the introduction of the “Driverless 20” or D20. Our D20 is not the d20 role playing game introduced by the same people who brought you Dungeon and Dragons. Our D20 is a stock index that tracks 20 publically traded international companies that are some of the most influential in the area of Driverless Transportation. Similar to the Dow Jones Industrials (or even the less watched Dow Jones Transportation Average), we have created a stock price tracking index that we will publish weekly.

There are some parallels between the Dow Jones Industrials, first calculated in May of 1896, and our D20. Shortly after the Dow Industrials debuted, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line and the Model T, which revolutionized ground transportation. We are introducing the D20 during a new era in ground transportation, the advent of Driverless Transportation.

We are going to track four types of companies in our D20 index:

1. Vehicle – typically thought of as Automobile and Truck Manufacturers
2. Parts Supplier – typically thought of as Tier I, II or III supplier to the big automotive manufacturers
3. Technology companies – companies that create some combination of hardware, firmware and software will be the basis for Driverless technology
4. Technology OEM – Technology companies that have started designing (and possibility building) their own Driverless Vehicles

These four types of companies that combine vehicle and parts and design and manufacturing experience with the advanced computing technology will make Driverless Transportation a reality.

Here is the list of twenty companies we included in the D20. We have also noted their country of origin, their type and stock trading symbol we are using:

1. BlackBerry Ltd. (Canada – Technology - BBRY)
2. BYD Company LTD (China – Technology OEM - BYDDY)
3. Continental AG (Germany – Parts Supplier - CTTAY)
4. Daimler AG (Germany – Vehicle - DDAIF)
5. Delphi Automotive PLC (USA – Parts Supplier - DLPH)
6. Denso Corporation (Japan – Parts Supplier - DNZOY)
7. Ford Motor Company (USA – Vehicle - F)
8. General Motors Company (USA – Vehicle - GM)
9. Google Inc. (USA – Technology OEM - GOOG)
10. Iteris Inc (USA – Technology - ITI)
11. KVH Industries, Inc. (USA – Technology - KVHI)
12. Mobileye NV Amsterdam (Israel – Technology - MBLY)
13. Nokia Corporation (Finland – Technology - NOK)
14. Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (Japan – Vehicle - NSANY)
15. NVIDIA Corporation (USA – Technology - NVDA)
16. Tesla Motors Inc. (USA – Technology OEM - TSLA)
17. Valeo SA (France – Parts Supplier - VLEEY)
18. Visteon Corp. (USA – Parts Supplier - VC)
19. Volkswagen AG (Germany – Vehicle - VLKPY)
20. Volvo AB (Sweden – Vehicle - VOLVY)

As you can see there are nine different countries represented. We think it will take a global effort to introduce and deploy Driverless Technology. We thought it would be important to have as many of the major countries represented as possible.

Our index equals the total price of 1 share of each of the stocks in our index divided by 10. We use ADR prices for foreign companies and NYSE or NASDAQ prices for any company that is headquartered in the US. That allows us to calculate everything in dollars and minimize our work at calculating currency fluctuations. We will update the price weekly based on the market closing prices each Friday (or the last week day if there is a Friday holiday that Wall Street observes).   We started our tracking on August 1^st, 2014 with the D20 equal to 139.694. It was 141.766 at the close of the US markets on October 3^rd, 2014.

What do you think? Did we miss any companies? Do you think this group of companies will outperform the Dow Industrials or the other stock based indexes?

Click here for more information on the D20 Stock Index.