The forecast also implies that, by 2030, a global fleet of a few million commercial AVs will be used for ridesharing. While that’s a sliver of the total cars worldwide, it would mean a market of more than $25 billion for robotaxis.
How AI can boost the self-driving car industry
Though there are some AVs on the road now (in markets such as San Francisco, Phoenix, Wuhan, and Beijing), the technology has yet to be broadly deployed. While 60% of current vehicles have some level of driver assistance, only 1-2% of total global vehicles sales in 2026 are expected to have Level 3 features.
Higher levels of driving automation have been implemented more slowly than Goldman Sachs Research forecast in 2022, due to technology constraints as well as regulatory and business model considerations.
That said, there are also signs that AI advances could accelerate the adoption of vehicles that are substantially more autonomous. “Research on AI scaling does suggest that added computers, larger training datasets, and improved model architectures should contribute to better AI model performance,” our analysts write.
Lower costs of hardware are another potential reason AV adoption may increase. Driver assistance and fully autonomous vehicles use dozens of cameras, sensors and, in some cases, lidar devices. For example, a certain Level 2+ car on the road today uses 8 cameras, while a particular Level 4 vehicle uses 29. As the costs of these components drop, AVs will get cheaper and more efficient.
This acceleration in AV adoption could power a variety for stocks in an array of sectors, including chipmakers, rideshare companies, self-driving technology developers, as well as some automakers.
Looking out even further, Goldman Sachs Research sees a bull case scenario in which AV sales (Level 3 automation or higher) account for about 60% of all light vehicle sales in 2040. Even in a less optimistic scenario, AVs will likely make up close to 40% of new sales.
How self-driving cars will change the rideshare business
AV adoption rates are anticipated to be the highest in China, where Level 3 or higher AV sales could account for 90% of all sales by 2040. According to our analysts, nearly 80% of all car sales in Europe and roughly 65% of all car sales in the US could be advanced AV vehicles by 2040.
Source: goldmansachs.com
