Whitney Tilson TaaS: Legit Investment? [Transportation-as-a-Service]

Looking for a review of Whitney Tilson TaaS presentation?

At a time when many newsletter editors are encouraging people to invest in tech stocks, Whitney Tilson wants you to invest in TaaS (short for Transportation-as-a-Service).

He says TaaS “will create more millionaire investors over the next decade than anything else on the planet…” but can we trust his insights or is he just trying to sell us his newsletter, the Empire Stock Investor?

In this review, I seek to answer that as I take you through the event and learn more about what he means when he says that this new trend can put “an extra $5,600 back in your pocket each year – without you making a single investment.”

Keep reading to find out more about his TaaS investment and whether the self driving vehicle trend is worth your time.

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Whitney Tilson’s TaaS Investment Review

Table of Contents

Introduction to TaaS

In his presentation titled “Have You Heard of ‘TaaS’?” Whitney Tilson of Empire Financial Research introduces TaaS, which stands for Transportation-as-a-Service.

He released the presentation in 2020 but has since done a few updates to it. It is an ad for his investment advisory service, Empire Stock Investor.

This investment opportunity is about autonomous, electric vehicles and the investment recommendations Tilson is pitching to his Empire Stock Investor subscribers.

When most people hear about the concept of Taas, they think of Uber or some other ride-sharing service, but Tilson says that TaaS will affect every aspect of our lives and alter the prices we pay for goods and services.

It will also save a million lives every year and, unfortunately, put some companies out of business.

When it comes to investing in this trend, he says that you can benefit from the investment if you invest early. And if you position yourself properly, you may earn more money in the long term.

In that sense, he echoes what other newsletters editors like Paul Mampilly, Jim Rickards, and Tom Gentile have been urging their readers to do: invest during the crisis.

Whitney describes it as “the convergence of two new technologies that are being brought together to reshape the country.” He says the convergence always happens whenever there is a major technological development.

Whitney says that people don’t understand that technology makes big disruptions in people’s lives and in the stock market when two or more inventions converge. A single invention doesn’t make a big splash.

He says that when you pair the convergence of multiple technologies with an effective business model, you have a winning formula.

For example, he thinks that the personal computer caught on because of the invention of the hard drive, integrated circuits, integrated computer systems, and other key breakthroughs.

The internet was a combination of multiple breakthroughs. When the Department of Defense’s ARPANET technology linked four computers together in 1969, internet became a phenomenon when “packet switching,” Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) were invented.

The smartphone was a smashing success because of the convergence of technologies like high-speed modems, seamless roaming, GPS, digital imaging, touchscreens, and other important breakthroughs.

He is inferring that TaaS is similar to those other successful breakthroughs because it is a convergence of multiple technologies too.

Who is Whitney Tilson?

Whitney Tilson is the founder of Empire Financial Research.

He is an entrepreneur and one of the most famous investors in the newsletter-writing business.

We recently shared an article on his predictions for 2023 .

Whitney Tilson’s Background

Tilson is known for his philanthropy; for instance, he has helped raise over $10 million for inner-city schools.

He has met Presidents Clinton and Obama and attended 21 of the most recent Berkshire Hathaway meetings.

He is a former hedge fund manager, who went to Harvard Business School and his greatest achievement was growing $1 million in starting capital into a fund worth more than $200 million in one decade.

At his peak, he established and managed Kase Capital Management, but shut it down in 2017 after underperforming the market for a few years.

After shutting down his hedge fund, he ventured into the newsletter editing business and launched Empire Financial Research.

He is also a public speaker who’s held talks at Google as well as prestigious institutions like Harvard, Wharton, and Columbia.

He has featured in publications like Forbes, CNN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

He once appeared on the cover of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.

He has made two guest appearances on the investigative news segment, 60 Minutes. One was with Scott Pelley and the other, Anderson Cooper.

Whitney Tilson’s Track Record

One thing Whitney Tilson likes talking about is his track record.

When he was on 60 minutes the first time in 2008, he told Scott Pelley that there would be a second wave of the Mortgage Crisis but the stock market would soar.

He was proven right because the market went on a historic bull run:

On his return to 60 Minutes in March 2015 with Anderson Cooper, he blew the whistle on one of America’s largest home-improvement companies, Lumber Liquidators.

The company went on to plummet, just as he had anticipated.

He was also quite successful at picking high-performing stocks when he was running hedge funds. He bought good companies before they became household names. Like Netflix when it was $7.78 a share:

Apple at 35 cents:

And Amazon at $48 before this:

He hopes to be as good at spotting those undervalued companies if you sign up for his advisories.

What is Transportation-as-a-Service?

TaaS, as Tilson describes it, arises from the convergence of two technologies: autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles.

When the two come together, we will have electric autonomous vehicles and this convergence will create a new lucrative investment opportunity.

According to Tilson, the two developments are taking shape and this will drive the TaaS revolution:

The emergence of electric vehicles (EVs).

He says that EVs will soon be more popular than gas-powered cars, not because people want to go green, but because it will be cheaper to own an electric car. Electric cars will also be better cars, overall.

One of the drivers of this markdown is more affordable batteries:

As the batteries become more affordable, the EV industry will soon overtake the traditional car industry. To quote him:

And, because battery technology is not only getting better but also a lot cheaper, the “crossover point” (when electric vehicles are actually cheaper to purchase than their gas-powered equivalent) is projected to start in 2022!

In fact, every year, Bloomberg keeps pushing up the date for the crossover point – when electric vehicles will be cheaper upfront than a combustion vehicle. Back in 2017 they said it would happen in 2026, then they revised the date to be 2024… then 2022… and in December 2020, they said:

“The price of battery packs for electric vehicles is fast approaching a tipping point… EV makers soon will be producing models that are as affordable – and as profitable – as comparable combustion engine models, and without the help of tax subsidies.”

In addition to the lower upfront costs, he also expects it to cost less to maintain an EV as opposed to an internal-combustion equivalent. He gives

The advent of self-driving car technology.

Combined with the rise of EVs, this will make for a revolutionary transformation. As Tilson puts it:

While electric vehicles are disrupting the automotive world… EVs alone won’t truly disrupt our society or the entire economy.

But…

When you pair EVs with another disruptive technology – self-driving vehicles, controlled by very powerful computers – it could be completely transformative.

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 today.

What’s interesting here is that it’s the opposite of what Jimmy Mengel’s Tesla Killer Blue Gas revolution predicts.

He says that when TaaS goes mainstream there will be a fleet of autonomous cars that will be electric. It will be like Uber and Lyft, but with electric, autonomous cars.

People will hail a car for whatever use and it will be cheaper.

TaaS will essentially mean a fleet of electric, autonomous cars that can go 500+ miles without charging… and over 100,000+ miles a year, with little maintenance.

It’s basically how Uber and Lyft operate today – but with electric, driverless vehicles.

You’ll be able to hail different types of vehicles for whatever you need… a small car for a quick trip… a luxury vehicle for a long ride… a truck if necessary.

There will soon be fleets of electric, driverless vehicles on our streets, ready to be hailed from your phone at a moment’s notice.

The self-driving car space is likely to be dominated by any company that figures out how to integrate AI in cars in a way that they don’t require human intervention.

So far, Tesla appears to be leading the way considering they beta test their algorithms in real-time, a highly effective concept that no other company is adopting.

Tilson expects TaaS to affect other industries:

There will be fewer accidents, hence saving lives.
People will save up to $6,000 in transportation costs every year (which could be the $5,600 he promises you will make without investing).
As the demand for oil will be low, the oil industry will decline.

We will also save on parking space and use the extra real estate for other uses.

Instead of having parking lots, we could see such spaces be put into use in other ways. Real estate values will reflect this.

How to make money from TaaS

To make money from TaaS, he is proposing that you consider investing in four Taas Stocks:

Investment #1

Invest in Waymo by investing in shares of Alphabet (GOOGL), which is the parent company that owns 100% of Waymo.

He sees it as a promising company that may even be spun out and become an independent company.

As I mentioned earlier, Waymo has already launched an autonomous vehicle ride-hailing service in Arizona, called Waymo One.

And to expand its services, Waymo has purchased up to 62,000 self-driving Chrysler minivans. They are also working with Jaguar to build up to 20,000 self-driving SUVs. And in the fall of 2020, Waymo partnered with Daimler Trucks, the market leader in large commercial vehicles, to make fully autonomous trucks.

Morgan Stanley values Waymo at more than $100 billion. Based on my analysis, I think Waymo could be spun out of Alphabet and become its own company.

What makes this such a great investment is that you can buy Alphabet today – which is an incredible, dominant, cash-gushing business – and pay essentially nothing for Waymo. In short, I would strongly recommend Alphabet even if they didn’t own Waymo… but it’s an even better buy with Waymo as part of their overall business.

It is fully owned by Alphabet.

Investment #2

Invest in electric car technology. Whitney has one investment that he thinks is ideal for that.

That’s why, the absolute best thing you can do is to simply take a stake in the best technology and the critical components EVERY electric car uses.

Luckily for you and me, there’s a way to do that with one straightforward investment.

It lets you own the best electric car technology… and the components EVERY electric car needs.

It’s THE PERFECT way to invest in the booming future for electric cars. This investment is up more than 100% over the past year… and I expect it could continue to increase in value in the years to come.

He has written a report called The #1 Way to Profit on the Electric Vehicle Boom that has all the details about his recommendation.

Although he doesn’t share clues regarding his number one stock in the EV market, previous versions of the presentation suggested that he was recommending Aptiv (APTV).

Investment #3

The third of his Taas Stocks is a company that makes the computer systems that power a majority of today’s driverless cars and another company that makes the “brain” and “nervous system” of autonomous cars.

The details you need to invest in the two companies are in a report called The Two Critical Driverless Technologies You Must Own Today.

This report has details about two companies responsible for the key components of self-driving electric cars.

Investment #4

Invest in a small company that supplies materials that are used in self-driving cars. You can read about it in a report called The TaaS Speculation—How to Quadruple Your Money in the Next Few Years.

What You Get When You Join Empire Stock Investor

When you subscribe to the Empire Stock Investor, you get free copies of all the three aforementioned reports. Empire Stock Investor is the flagship investment research service of Empire Financial Research.

When you sign up, you will receive the following as part of your subscription:

Monthly issues of the Empire Stock Investor Newsletter. These come with new profit-making recommendations on the first Wednesday of every month.
Tilson will also send you daily email updates discussing the current issues affecting your investments when the markets open.
You will be automatically subscribed to Empire Financial Daily and Whitney Tilson’s Daily emails.
Access to all of his archived research reports and recommendations.
You will also receive two bonus reports: The Perfect Portfolio and The Industries Most Affected by the Driverless Car Revolution.
Access to the model portfolio.

Subscription Fee and Refund Policy

The annual subscription fee is $49 and it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Although you will only pay $49 in the first year, it renews automatically at a higher cost. Here is an excerpt from the disclaimer at the bottom of the order form:

By clicking on the Submit button, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and that your subscription to Empire Stock Investor will automatically renew on an annual basis until you properly cancel. Upon renewal for your Empire Stock Investor, Empire Financial will charge $199 (plus applicable taxes) to your credit card or other means of payment which we will retain on file.

These are the kinds of details you miss in the fine print that end up costing more money than you had planned for. If you don’t want it to renew every year, all you have to do is cancel your subscription.

Is Whitney Tilson’s TaaS Legit?

I think TaaS is a legit presentation because Whitney Tilson makes valid arguments about the future of self driving cars.

We cannot ignore the fact that most traditional car manufacturers are taking electric cars very seriously.

They know that it is the future of transportation, and as Tesla the dominant force in the electric car space has proven, it is quite popular.

Self driving car technology has also been receiving a lot of attention from big car manufacturers, where again, Tesla leads the way.

For example, Google has a driverless car division called Waymo that is already operational in Phoenix.

Other companies like Mercedes Benz have started offering autonomous car ride-hailing services in cities like San Jose in California.

Therefore, Transportation-as-a-Service is starting to look les and less of a pipe dream, and Whitney expects it to spread across the world.

Whitney Tilson TaaS Verdict

Although the presentation was done for Tilson to promote his investment research service, Empire Stock Investor, he talks about new tech trends we should consider for investment and recommends four Transportation as a Service Stocks he wants us to consider for investment.

Tilson has proved to be a credible analyst because he has made a couple of predictions that have come true.

For example, he predicted the bull market that started after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and other events. And for that, I think he qualifies to be referred to as a veteran (not to mention he has run hedge funds).

He also called the decline of 88 different stocks and was on the money in 2017 when he predicted that Bitcoin was at its peak and that it was about to start plummeting.

He predicted the collapse of many cannabis stocks right when they were soaring.

He is betting on TaaS becoming a major hit with the same life-changing impact as the internet. He believes it is not a far-off dream but a reality that is happening right now. If you believe him, you can look into his recommendations.

Before you leave

If you’re tired of scams and want a real solution for making money online check out my no.1 recommendation.

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David Fortune

David Fortune has been the editor NoBSIMReviews.com since 2019. He is an expert at writing content on stock advisory services, side hustles, reviewing online business opportunities and many more topics. You can learn more about David on our about us page.

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