Instrument
Driverless car stocks: the complete D20 index list of companies
An equal-weighted index of listed companies whose strategy depends on automated driving reaching commercial deployment. Introduced October 2014, rebased August 2015.
- Constituents
- 19 / 20
- Weighting
- Equal
- Launched
- 2014
- Rebased
- 2015
What it measures
What the driverless car stocks index measures
The driverless car stocks index was built around a single question: if automated driving becomes a commercial reality, which publicly traded companies capture the value? Twenty were selected across four groups — the compute and sensing layer, the mapping layer, the vehicle makers, and the tier-one suppliers who would build whatever the vehicle makers specified. Each slot carried equal weight, so the index tracked the breadth of the thesis rather than the fortunes of its largest member.
Anyone screening driverless car stocks in 2014 faced a list with no obvious boundary, which is why the selection rule was written down before the roster was. That construction has aged in an instructive way. The thesis was broadly correct — automated driving did become commercial, in narrow operating domains, roughly a decade later than the optimistic end of the 2014 forecasts. But the index's returns have been dominated by a constituent whose growth came overwhelmingly from data-centre demand rather than from vehicles. An equal-weighted thematic index cannot separate the theme from the coincidence, and this one did not.
The roster of driverless car stocks itself proved less stable than the thesis. Between 2014 and today, one constituent was acquired and later returned to public markets under its own ticker, one divided into two companies with only one of them inheriting the slot, two were renamed after corporate reorganisations that never involved a market transaction, and one operated, suspended and then reabsorbed an entire robotaxi subsidiary. Those are not edge cases; they are most of the roster. An index that does not publish how it handles them is not reproducible.
Roster
The nineteen recovered constituents: the full list
Grouped by the role each company plays in the automated-driving stack. Status reflects what has happened to the listing since the driverless car stocks index was rebased.
Compute, sensing and mapping
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Still listed under the original ticker. Compute platforms for perception and planning.
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Acquired by Intel in 2017; returned to public markets in an October 2022 IPO. Vision-based driver assistance and mapping.
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Listed in Amsterdam. HD mapping and navigation data.
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Ticker shortened to BB in 2019. QNX vehicle operating system and security tooling.
Vehicle manufacturers
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Still listed under the original ticker. Vehicle manufacturing and driver-assistance software.
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Google reorganised under Alphabet in October 2015; the self-driving project became Waymo in December 2016. Waymo — full-stack autonomous driving.
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Still listed. Cruise was acquired in 2016 and folded back into GM in 2024. Vehicle manufacturing; Cruise robotaxi programme.
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Still listed under the original ticker. Vehicle manufacturing; Argo AI partnership.
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ADR quoted as VWAGY; the archive records the older VLKPY line. Vehicle manufacturing; software and autonomy investment.
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Daimler Truck was spun off in December 2021 and the remaining company was renamed Mercedes-Benz Group. Vehicle manufacturing; conditional automation.
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ADR still quoted under the original ticker. Electric vehicle and battery manufacturing.
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ADR still quoted under the original ticker. Vehicle manufacturing; ProPILOT driver assistance.
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ADR quoted as VLVLY; the archive records the older VOLVY line. Commercial vehicles and autonomous haulage.
Tier-one suppliers
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Split in December 2017. The autonomy business became Aptiv; the powertrain business became Delphi Technologies, acquired by BorgWarner in 2020. Vehicle architecture, sensing and software integration.
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ADR still quoted under the original ticker. Tier-one components, sensing and control units.
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Powertrain division spun off as Vitesco in 2021; a further automotive split was announced later. Tier-one components, radar and braking systems.
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ADR still quoted under the original ticker. Tier-one components; automotive lidar.
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Still listed under the original ticker. Contract manufacturing and vehicle systems.
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Still listed under the original ticker. Cockpit electronics and displays.
Slot 20 Vacant. The surviving index pages list nineteen tickers. Rather than infer the twentieth from contemporaneous coverage, the slot is published empty and the index is calculated over nineteen.
Rules
Reconstitution rules for index companies
Published in full because most of the roster has been through at least one of these events. An index whose handling of acquisitions and spin-offs is undocumented is not reproducible.
| Rule | Treatment |
|---|---|
| Selection | A company qualifies if a material part of its stated strategy depends on automated driving reaching commercial deployment — vehicle makers, tier-one suppliers, sensing, mapping and compute. Pure-play electrification is not sufficient on its own. |
| Weighting | Equal weight at each reconstitution. The archive is explicit that this was chosen so that a single large constituent could not turn the index into a proxy for one share price. |
| Acquisition | A constituent acquired outright leaves at the closing price and is not replaced until the next reconstitution. Mobileye left under this rule in 2017. |
| Split or spin-off | Where a constituent divides, the successor carrying the automated-driving business inherits the slot. Aptiv inherited Delphi's slot; Delphi Technologies did not. |
| Rename or ticker change | A slot survives a change of name or ticker. Mercedes-Benz Group continues Daimler's slot; BB continues BBRY. |
| Re-entry | A company that left through acquisition may return at a later reconstitution if it relists and still qualifies. Mobileye is the only constituent to have done so. |
| Vacancy | Where the archive does not record which company held a slot, the slot is published as vacant rather than filled by inference. |
Events
Structural events since launch
- 2014
Index introduced
Twenty listed companies selected across vehicle makers, tier-one suppliers, mapping and compute.
- 2015
Rebased
Constituents and weighting reset in August; this is the baseline the surviving archive articles measure against.
- 2016
Cruise acquired by GM
A private company inside a constituent, not an index event — but the moment robotaxi programmes moved onto public-company balance sheets.
- 2017
Two structural breaks
Intel acquired Mobileye. Delphi split into Aptiv and Delphi Technologies. The index lost one constituent and had to re-map another.
- 2020
Delphi Technologies acquired
BorgWarner completed the purchase, closing out the non-autonomy half of the Delphi split.
- 2021
Daimler Truck spun off
The remaining entity renamed to Mercedes-Benz Group, changing the constituent's identity without a market event.
- 2022
Mobileye returns
A partial IPO put the perception constituent back on public markets after five years inside Intel.
- 2024
Cruise reabsorbed
GM folded the robotaxi subsidiary back into the parent after its California permits were suspended.
Reference