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For the third straight week, the Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index outpaced both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index by gaining 1.3 percent and finishing at 156.19. The Dow added 0.8 percent to end the week at 12215.97 while the S&P 500 finished at 2033.11 up 0.9 percent. For the D20 this week gainers outnumbered losers 13 to seven.
After a one week reprieve, Volkswagen (VLKPY) returned to the losing side, dropping 4.6 percent and ending the week at $23.07. Volkswagen’s credit rating dropped and management shake-ups surfaced as the emissions scandal continues to plague the company.
The price of crude oil has been rising in the last month and a half and that has been a boon to BYD Co. (BYDDY), the Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturer. BYD had its sixth consecutive weekly advance and closed Friday up 10.7 percent. Between September 4 and October 16 BYD rose from $7.70 to $12.45 a share, a 62 percent increase. NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) also rose consistently during that time, ending last week up 6.9 percent to finish at $27.86.
Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.
Two consecutive weekly gains have pushed the Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index just over the 150 mark. The D20 Index outpaced both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 by gaining 2.42 points or 1.63 percent to close the week at 150.83. The Dow lost 0.3 percent of its value while the S&P gave back 0.15 percent. In the D20, gainers outnumbered losers sixteen to four.
One of the D20’s newest members, TomTom (TOM2), led the advance this week with a 7.69 percent gain in value. TomTom’s rise was due to a combination of factors. First, since Nokia’s sale of its Here! mapping business, rumors continue to swirl around the prospect that TomTom will do the same. Second, TomTom announced strong year to date sales results. Right behind TomTom was BYD Company (BYDDY) who gained 6.98 percent.
The D20 loss leaders for the week were Volvo (VOLVY) who lost 4.30 percent of its value and Volkswagen (VLKPY) who lost 4.62 percent amid allegations that they cheated on their periodic state emissions testing for some of their diesel powered cars.
Since the D20 changed its measurement method on August 28th, 2015, the top three gainers have been:
The three biggest losers have been:
Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.
We have some exciting changes in the Driverless Transportation D20 Index to announce. First off, we are replacing three companies in the index and making the D20 more international in scope. We also changed the basis for our calculation of the D20 Index, moving to a dollar averaged approach.
The three new stocks in the D20 are:
The D20 Index now has companies — TomTom in Amsterdam and Renesas in Tokyo — with stocks that are primarily listed on non-US exchanges and use foreign currencies for prices. To calculate the D20 and include these stocks we convert the non-US stock prices (Euros and Japanese Yen) to US dollars using a current conversion ratio. The values were: Euro – currently 1.136 dollars per Euro; and Japanese Yen – currently .00829 dollars per Yen.
CALCULATING THE INDEX
We have changed the basis for calculating the D20 Index. Previously, the value of the D20 was calculated by using one share of stock from each of the 20 stocks in the index. With the new dollar-averaged approach we track the value of $1,000 invested in each of the 20 stocks. And on August 28, 2015 we started with roughly a total of $20,000 invested equally in the 20 stocks ($1,000 per company) in the D20 Index.
|
Name |
Symbol |
(As of 8/28/2015) | |||
| Share Price | Shares | Currency Conversion | Value | ||
| BlackBerry Ltd | BBRY | $ 7.37 | 135.690 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| BYD COMPANY LTD ADR | BYDDY | $ 8.44 | 118.480 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Continental AG (ADR) | CTTAY | $ 42.86 | 23.330 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Daimler AG (USA) | DDAIF | $ 80.70 | 12.390 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Delphi Automotive PLC | DLPH | $ 75.35 | 13.270 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Denso Corp (ADR) | DNZOY | $ 22.69 | 44.070 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Ford Motor Company | F | $ 13.73 | 72.830 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| General Motors Company | GM | $ 29.01 | 34.470 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Google Inc | GOOG | $ 630.38 | 1.586 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Magna | MGA | $ 49.23 | 20.313 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Mobileye NV Amsterdam | MBLY | $ 56.42 | 17.724 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (ADR) | NSANY | $ 18.31 | 54.620 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| NVIDIA Corporation | NVDA | $ 22.73 | 43.990 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Tesla Motors Inc | TSLA | $ 248.48 | 4.025 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| TomTom | TOM2 | € 8.97 | 100.010 | 1.115 | $ 1,000 |
| Visteon Corp | VC | $ 100.49 | 9.950 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| VALEO SA (ADR) | VLEEF | $ 63.66 | 15.710 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Volkswagen AG (ADR) | VLKPY | $ 38.32 | 26.100 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Volvo AB (ADR) | VOLVY | $ 10.94 | 91.410 | 1.000 | $ 1,000 |
| Renesas | TYO:6732 | ¥ 708.00 | 168.008 | 0.00841 | $ 1,000 |
Why the change? We found that with the one-share approach the stocks with the highest prices, i.e., Google, trading over $600, and Tesla, over $250, could swing the D20 wildly with just a small change in their pricing. The dollar-average approach means each company in the D20 now makes up about five percent of the index’s underlying value.
Why didn’t the D20 Index change radically when we switched the basis? We have always used a divisor with the D20 Index, and it started as 10.0. That meant we added up all the stock prices at the close of the trading day and divided by 10. To switch to the new dollar-average approach we changed the divisor so the new D2’s underlying value would be the same as the old D2. So on August 28, 2015 we used the closing stock prices to find the value of each of the two D20s, then adjusted the divisor for the dollar-averaged D20 so it had the same value as the old D20. The new divisor is 134.27296.
On September 4 we switched over to the revised D20 Index with the three new stocks and the new divisor.
Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.
I use my car about an hour a day. Why do I need to insure it for 24 hours?
That question sets the business premise for Metromile, a pay-per-mile auto insurance firm that charges fees based on the driver’s use of his or her vehicle. Metromile claims that consumers that drive less than 10,000 miles a year can save, on average, $500 annually on their insurance with its program.
Now available in California, Illinois, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, Metromile is an offshoot of the sharing or on-demand economy, as exemplified by such firms as Car2Go (a Daimler subsidiary) and transportation provider Uber. Both of them cater to consumers that don’t own cars but like to use them on an as-needed basis.
San Francisco-based Metromile may be a harbinger of the way auto insurance will be sold in the world of driverless vehicles, which some experts believe could happen within about 10 years. At that time many consumers will opt for driverless ride-sharing services where they don’t own the vehicle that gets them to work and shopping.
Presumably there will still be an occasional accident in those vehicles, and a need for insurance. After all, Google reports its driverless Koala cars have had 16 accidents during 2 million-some miles of tests.
So who is held responsible — the ‘driver’ or person sitting in the vehicle — when the accident occurs? Or is it the automaker that creates and/or installs the autonomous technology in the vehicle; or the ride-sharing firm? (Which just may be Uber.)
Accident responsibility remains an open question. But it will be interesting to watch Metromile as it attempts to navigate into the world of driverless vehicles.
METROMILE BRASS TACKS
Metromile gives its pay-per-mile costumers a free Pulse device that must be plugged into the diagnostic port (OBD-II) of their vehicle. The consumer also must download a Metromile app from either the Apple store or from Google Play. The device tracks miles traveled, and certain vehicle performance data and sends the information to the customer’s smartphone and to Metromile.
Metromile charges a monthly base rate, along with the per-mile fee. These charges depend on driver age, driving history, credit history, the vehicle and other factors. Per-mile fees stop after 150 miles a day (250 in Washington) so the customer can take an occasional long trip without getting hit with a big charge.
The Pulse doesn’t track driver behavior like hard stops or speed, according to Metromile. It does offer a mapping service and can be used to find your car. In Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, it has even been programmed to know when street sweeping will occur so the driver can move the car before getting a ticket.
Its insurance policies are sold by Metromile Insurance Services LLC and written by insurers in the National General Insurance Group.
Seed funders NEA, Index Ventures, First Round Capital, and SV Angel put up $4 million to get Metromile started, according to a 2013 TechCrunch story. That year, another $10 million was added to the pot by existing funders along with AmTrust Ventures, Allen & Company, and Felicis Ventures.
Photo of Car Insurance by Pictures of Money, 2014.
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More trucking firms and their insurers are signing up for a videotaping system that monitors truck driver behavior and San Diego-based Lytx Inc. is reaping the benefits.
Lytx reported that it added 57,000 subscriptions-in-service (SIS) to its DriveCam and RAIR Compliance Services program in 2014, and ended the year with 200,000 subscriptions and nearly 1,300 government and commercial clients. Each SIS is a vehicle using a Lytx video system.
This year, Lytx reports more than a half-dozen trucking fleets and several insurance companies have signed up for its DriveCam program, including:
The foundation of Lytx’s DriveCam program is a small video system with multiple cameras that is mounted in the vehicle cab above the rear view mirror. Cameras focus on the driver and toward the street, recording driver behavior and street activity, according to Lytx videos.
If there’s an accident or an event like hard braking or a sharp turn occurs, the taped video is sent via wireless network to the trucking company, the firm that contracted the driver, or Lytx.
The recording can be used to determine whether the driver caused, did not cause, or helped avoid an accident or unusual event.
Lytx can also use the recording to analyze the driver’s performance during day-to-day driving, and to create a scoring system for good and bad driver behavior. Each driver then has a score that rises or falls depending on a slew of factors, from accidents, to unnecessary gas use, to texting, or other behavior the fleet operator seeks to track.
A fleet that uses the DriveCam system can use the score and the videos for driver coaching. Lytx’s Risk-Predict program tracks behavior to find the driver in a fleet that is most likely to cause an accident.
The RAIR Compliance system serves U.S. Department of Transportation-regulated fleets. It monitor driver logs, vehicle inspection reports, driver qualifications, and drug testing.
Lytx says that truck fleets that use its combined services see payback on their investment in six months due to reduced collisions and lower fuel and maintenance costs. Privately-held Lytx doesn’t release its financial results though it claims that 2014 was its third consecutive year with orders of more than $100 million. In 2013, Volvo Group Venture Capital made an undisclosed investment in Lytx, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.
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