cars are getting smarter as anyone who has watched a tesla drive itself down the road on youtube already knows more advanced driving features help any auto maker—such as tesla—sell more vehicles but smarter cars are also a boon for other companies in several supporting industries which leaves a number of ways to play the smartcar trend citigroup looked at the smartcar—cars that are electrified connected to a network and can drive themselves—and identified a handful of stocks that can benefit from the theme for years to come four stocks in particular look like they have the right mix of factors to attract several different kinds of investors autonomous cars represent the pinnacle of smartness “our cars are like semisentient robots on wheels” said tesla tsla ceo elon musk at his company’s artificial intelligence event in august tesla was showing off how intelligent its cars are becoming and the company is spending millions to develop autonomous driving features faster than its competition every auto maker is in the race to develop smart selfdriving cars ford motor f calls its autonomous driving system blue cruise chinese ev maker nio nio calls its system nad short for nio autonomous driving and nio’s supercomputer which it calls the brain of nad is dubbed adam those systems and computers use components from countless suppliers “smartcars are set to turbocharge demand in the technology space” wrote citigroup analyst arthur lai in a wednesday report “by 2030 we expect technology content to be 50 by value of a typical smartcar” he envisions tech sales into the car industry exceeding sales to the smartphone industry by the middle of this decade it’s becoming a 1 trillion annual opportunity for smartcar suppliers that’s a new source of growing demand for some tech companies in several sectors in microchips citi highlights cree cree infineon technologies iffny kla klac and nvidia nvda in tech hardware citi likes precision motor maker nidec njdcy and sunny optical sotgy in addition corning glw lens technology 30422china and lg display lpl can benefit as car interfaces inside the cabin get more complex not all of those companies have significant trading volume in the us and not all are beloved by wall street analysts but nvidia corning and lg display look to have the right mix of analyst support size and volume more than 80 of analysts covering nvidia stock rate shares buy the average buyrating ratio for stocks in the sp 500 is about 55 nvidia makes graphics processing chips required to help selfdriving cars see it looks to be a stock for growth investors shares trade at about 49 times estimated 2022 earnings pershareearnings are expected to grow at about 36 a year on average for the coming two years far faster than the 10 average annual growth rate of earnings for the sp 500 corning and lg display look to be stocks for value investors shares trade for 16 times and 8 times estimated 2022 earnings respectively a discount to the 21 times multiple of the sp corning pershareearnings are expected to grow at about 12 a year on average for the coming two years lg display earnings however are expected to fall about 13 a year on average between 2021 and 2023 about 65 of analysts covering the stocks rate both corning and lg display rate shares buy cree meanwhile looks to be the most controversial call and perhaps one for contrarian investors the company makes silicon carbide for microchips and power switches for evs among other products only about 30 of analysts covering that stock rate shares buy net income is expected to move from losses to profits over the coming two years those are four options for different kinds of investors if those don’t appeal to some one thing remains certain the smartcar trend will provide investors with many options to evaluate for years to come