There are three public companies focused on self-driving trucks: Embark (EMBK), Aurora (AUR), and Tu Simple (TSP). All three of them have been beaten down harder than I was after I asked out my first crush.

EMBK is down 51% YTD, 57% from its all-time high
AUR is down 43% YTD, 61% from its all-time high
TSP is down 39% YTD, 64% from its all-time high

This is despite trucking prices rising and every other story on the news being about supply chain and driver shortages. There is a massive truck driver shortage (80,000 extra drivers are needed) https://www.vox.com/22841783/truck-drivers-shortage-supply-chain-pandemic and trucking is growing fast 4.7% globally https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-freight-trucking-market-to-reach-2-7-trillion-by-2026--301320057.html

The tech needed for these companies to succeed is here and far simpler than what self-driving cars need. It’s almost all highway driving which is fancy line following with a bit of don't hit the person in front of you. TSP recently started to do demo runs without anyone in the vehicle (this is a big moment and proves they are confident in their tech) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGglN4J9zZ0

If these companies get their tech working even only in ideal conditions on a few roads they will be able to make billions of dollars a year with very limited overhead.

You want fundamentals? We got those
Their are over 3.5 million human truck drivers in the U.S. https://stronggroupusa.com/how-many-truck-drivers-are-there-in-usa/. Each makes an average of 77k a year https://www.indeed.com/career/truck-driver/salaries. If just a fraction of the trucks in America were operated by self-driving truck companies their profits would be enormous.

Trucking is a $700B market in the U.S. That means that if one of these companies captures 1% of the market that is $7B. Put a 25x multiplier on that you get $175B valuations. If one of these companies takes 10% of the market that is almost $2 Trillion market cap. https://www.statista.com/statistics/922817/trucking-industry-united-states-total-revenue/

Embark estimates almost $2 billion in Gross Profit in 2025 (that is more revenue than the company is worth right now)

https://preview.redd.it/zrejhbc62kc81.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d7c7aef2bd92493acfcf53d77644bc3c65f1b84

Aurora is estimating a more conservative $1.3B in 2027

https://preview.redd.it/b1w4qtjq2kc81.png?width=2348&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f85979594065388069693e4810a197bee0082c5

But wait this is WSB you only want to invest in companies with the potential for a short squeeze? We got you covered
NOTE all numbers are based on December 31st numbers before the recent drop, new numbers come out tomorrow

EMBK and AUR are both still in lock-up periods which means the majority of shares can't be sold or leveraged until May. So the reported short interest numbers are misleading as only a few percent of the company shares can be used to cover shorts.
For embk ~11 million shares are free to trade (https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1827980/000110465921137026/tm2132535d2\_8k.htm) current short interest is 3,068,985 https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/embk/short-interest. This means of shares that can trade until may 27% are shorted and it would only take ~8 million shares to be shorted or locked up to bring that to 100%. At current prices of $4.27 that is only $34 million
For AUR ~22 million shares are free to trade current short interest is 13,437,301 https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/aur/short-interest this means of shares that can trade until may 59% are shorted to bring that to 100% it would only take ~9 million shares to be locked up or shorted. That is just $60 million at the current price of $6.63
Considering how far both stocks have fallen recently the real short interest numbers may be much higher.

Want to follow insiders Self driving trucks to have those too

The former secretary of transportation Elaine Chao is on EMBK board
Sequoia which was also an early investor in Google, Zoom, Instagram, Yahoo, Linkedin, Paypal, Reddit ... was an early investor in EMBK and AUR