What Is Whitney Tilson TaaS Stock?

Wondering what Whitney Tilson TaaS investment is all about?

Chances are, you have encountered Whitney Tilson’s TaaS video about self driving cars aka autonomous vehicles and you’re wondering if the investment opportunity is real.

Tilson claims to have uncovered the new trend that could “… put an extra $5,600 back in your pocket each year” as well as “… create more new millionaire investors than anything else on the planet.”

In this article, I will dissect the presentation and distill it into the main talking points to help you to make sense of what Whitney was talking about in his TaaS video presentation.

I’ll also share my opinion on whether you should access his Empire Stock Investor service.

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Table of Contents

What is TaaS?

In his presentation titled “Have You Heard of ‘TaaS’?” Whitney Tilson introduces us to an investment opportunity in the tech industry to do with the self driving car.

Note that the presentation is an ad for his investment research service, Empire Stock Investor.

TaaS, an acronym for Transportation-as-a-Service, is one of the oldest industries we have. But the pitch is not for a typical taxi service.

Technically, TaaS is paying for transportation so that you don’t have to own the means of transport; think taxis, buses, and other forms of public transport.

Companies like Uber and Lyft have cashed in on this trend in numerous ways over the last decade. Now with the rise of electric vehicles we could see a tipping point in how the EV is used. At least that is what Tilson is predicting.

Since Henry Ford pioneered the affordable automobile, the decades that followed witnessed a boom in car ownership.

There were 1 billion passenger cars on the road worldwide in 2018 and the number keeps growing.

But, irrespective of the high costs involved in maintaining a car, people don’t mind shouldering the burden due to the convenience of owning a car brings them, until now.

As more and more people have bought vehicles we have seen parking lots become much busier and more people turn to uber and lyft to avoid having their own transportation.

What is Taas technology?

The TaaS investment that Tilson is talking about will be brought about by the convergence of two important sectors: (a) Electric Vehicles and (b) Autonomous cars (aka self driving cars).

According to Tilson, electric cars will soon be cheaper than gas-powered cars. It’s a bold claim because up until now EVs have been significantly more expensive to access.

Here is how he puts it:

“What so many people are missing right now is that this shift to EVs isn’t about the environment or ‘going green.’ Again, it’s all about economics….”

“[an electric car is] cheaper to buy, costs 90% less to maintain and use on a daily basis, and lasts up to five-times longer…”

Alone, EVs won’t have that big of an impact. But if you pair them with self-driving technology, they will create a new lucrative industry TaaS, aka transportation as a service:

“When you pair EVs with another disruptive technology — self-driving vehicles, controlled by very powerful computers — it will be completely transformative.”

TaaS will become popular for two key reasons:

First, it will be cheap:

“Estimates are that TaaS will reduce the total costs of transportation by 10-times, compared to owning your own vehicle.”

In his calculations, Tilson expects the average car owner to save up to $6,000 on annual transportation costs by adopting TaaS, which explains why he promises to “put $5,600 back in your pocket.”

And, second, it will be convenient:

“Sooner than most people think, you’ll be able to hail an electric, self-driving vehicle via an app on your phone, just like you hail Lyft and Uber ride today.”

“I could soon walk out of my Manhattan home and comfortably ride to the Nation’s capital, in a TaaS vehicle…”

How to invest in TaaS

To invest in the new trend, you need to invest in electric cars and/or autonomous driving technology.

Self driving aka autonomous vehicles are at the forefront of this investment opportunity.

What TaaS Stocks Does Whitney Tilson Recommend?

Tilson has four TaaS stocks in mind:

The First one is Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet the parent company of Google (GOOGL).

It specializes in autonomous car technology:

“The stock symbol is GOOGL, and I recommend you do not pay more than $1,600 per share.”

He described the second one, an electric car company, as follows:

“It’s THE PERFECT way to invest in the booming future for electric cars. This investment is up 40% since last summer. It’s up more than 75% since the start of 2016… and I expect it to absolutely soar in value in the years to come.”

The third and fourth ones manufacture the computer systems in many driverless cars:

Number three in the report:

“The first company makes the most technologically advanced ‘brain’ and ‘nervous system’ for autonomous vehicles. This firm has already partnered with many of the leading companies in this space, including BMW, Hyundai, Audi, Intel, and Lyft, just to name a few.

And number four in the report:

“… the company that provides the computing power for many of today’s driverless vehicles… Already, this company has partnered with many of the world’s leading vehicle manufacturers, like Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes, and Volvo…”

Since he had already revealed the name of the first recommendation (Waymo), he kept the other three under wraps and will only reveal them if you try his newsletter.

However research suggests one of the companies is APTIV. APTIV makes an automated driving satellite computer. It’s already being used by other manufacturers.

The names of the other three companies are in the following reports:

The #1 Way to Profit on the Electric Vehicle Boom (Number two)
The Two Critical Driverless Technologies You Must Own Today (third and fourth companies).

There is a freebie report called The TaaS Speculation—How to Quadruple Your Money in the Next Few Years that has one other recommendation, which brings the total to five you can access inside.

Although it doesn’t feature in the presentation, 5G may also benefit from TaaS since it is a vital component of autonomous cars.

Other Analysts

It may be worth checking out what other analysts have been saying about 5G.

I have covered some, like EB Tucker’s 5G Master Key, Apple Fi by Ray Blanco (proposes that 5G is already obsolete!), and Jeff Brown 5G Stock Pick (The #1 Tech Stock for 2020).

Who is Whitney Tilson?

Whitney Tilson is a former hedge fund manager, a prominent investor and a veteran of the stock market.

He is the founder and CEO of Empire Financial Research, a company that publishes independent financial research predominantly for the benefit of retail investors.

At Empire Financial Research, he is the editor of Empire Stock Investor and Empire Investment Report. He also contributes to a daily newsletter called Empire Financial Daily.

The Empire Stock Investor is the research service in which he shares more information on the TaaS Investment.

Is Tilson Legit?

Before he created Empire Financial Research, Whitney ran Kase Capital Management, which he founded. He also gained an MBA from Harvard Business School.

It managed three hedge funds and two mutual funds.

Whitney grew its AUM from $1 million to $200 million so yes I believe you can trust his investment recommendations. No one can deny the value that Tilson is able to give.

He has even been asked to speak at prestigious business schools like Harvard and Wharton.

Tilson Books & Investment Strategy

He has co-written two books concerning investing and macroeconomics. They are The Art of Value Investing: How the World’s Best Investors Beat the Market and More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times.

He writes op-eds for TheStreet.com, The Financial Times, The Motley Fool, Kiplinger’s, and Forbes. He has been featured twice on CNBC’s 60 Minutes.

His focus is on growth opportunities in companies that he believes have immense value. For example he has been big on Tesla who he believes could be a huge part of TaaS.

What is the Empire Stock Investor?

To reveal the names of the four TaaS stocks, you have to subscribe to the Empire Stock Investor (to receive the reports for free).

The whole point of the presentation was to promote Empire Stock Investor.

When you sign up to Empire Stock Investor, you will be receiving daily email updates regarding new investment opportunities from Whitney and his research and editorial team.

On the first Wednesday of each month, he will also send you a new stock market recommendation. You also have access to the members only website where you can access online content concerning the newsletter.

The Empire Stock Investor Subscription Fee

The one-year membership plan to Empire Stock Investor costs $49.

Ensure you read the fine print before you cancel/confirm credit purchase to avoid paying more than $49 when you sign up.

The Empire Stock Investor Refund Policy

Empire Financial Research offers you a 30-day money-back guarantee. Therefore, you can cancel your subscriber registration account any time within the first days of joining for a full refund.

All you have to do is reach out to the customer service team at Empire Financial Research via your subscriber account email address.

Is Empire Stock Investor Legit?

Empire Stock Investor is certainly legitimate as is Tilson and the service he offers.

Whitney Tilson’s background is very strong and as the founder of Empire Financial Research he has a lot of experience.

His pitch for the self driving car makes sense and if transportation as a service takes off in a big way you can bet that the taas stocks he is pitching will take off too.

Whitney Tilson’s service provides you with the insight you need to learn more about TaaS stocks and consider them as part of your portfolio. The report he has put together shares more about TaaS and self driving cars in general.

Of course the only negative is that you need to make the investment in a subscription to Empire Stock Investor.

Drawbacks of Tilson’s TaaS Investment

We have mostly discussed the positives but you can’t ignore some of the negatives too.

One of these is the technology that we are trusting quite literally with our lives. I personally would not want to be driven in a self driving car any time soon.

We have seen in the news recently how a Tesla in self driving mode literally crashed into a tree. This was big news however it was quite rightly driver error that caused it since the technology isn’t quite there yet.

Do you want to trust your life to this or would you rather have a real driver?

The positive thing is that EVs will receive an update to their software which will iron our any issues and allow them to operate more safely.

We still need to consider how governments will legislate the industry and how they react will have a big impact on stocks. Investors need to keep this in mind before going big on this investment.

Wall Street will no doubt be watching how this plays out and whether the stocks Tilson talks about are worth adding to a model portfolio.

TaaS Investment Conclusion

Whitney Tilson believes that TaaS, Transportation as a Service, is going to be the next major trend in tech stocks.

He says that it will save many lives and, to the investors who pick the right stocks, it will make them rich. It is just one among multiple technologies that have been getting attention from investors. We’ve seen cryptocurrencies, 5G, and telemedicine (through which you can get sound medical advice from a licensed healthcare provider online) being touted.

Tesla is a company that can benefit hugely from the TaaS trend in order to sell more cars. Apple are another company investing heavily in this level of technology.

TaaS will be made possible by the coming together of electric cars and driverless cars, thus creating something of a fleet of driverless electric cars.

It will drive the cost of transportation down while somewhat preserving the convenience of owning a car in the way we do now, however car ownership could even pay us as discussed recently in a similar review (SAV).

Jeff Brown of Brownstone Research recently shared a presentation on SAV which stands for shared autonomous vehicles. The pitch was very similar to Tilson’s TaaS pitch and claimed that Elon was building a software company and not a car manufacturer.

Essentially what he was predicting is that people who own Tesla cars will be able to operate their own taxi service so that the car makes money whilst they are not using it.

This is something that would make owning an EV an investment instead of a liability like most cars are. This is something we could see integrated into existing companies like Uber and Lyft or we might find that Tesla branch out and do their own service.

Right now it’s hard to know what is certain, however that is why we do the research into the technology and look at an investment service like Empire Stock Investor.

Although Whitney has been right about many stock predictions in the past, he has made some mistakes over the years.

Proceed with caution if you decide to invest in Empire Stock Investor however you should always do due diligence before making any investment.

Before you go…