Why Tesla Stock Surged Higher Friday

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock is ending the week on a high note. Shares of the electric vehicle (EV) leader surged as much as 5% higher today as investors anticipate good things ahead. Ironically, some of the optimism came from a recent announcement from a competitor in self-driving technology.

Tesla is on the verge of finally displaying its technology for fully autonomous driving vehicles. That's less than one month away, and has investors piling into the shares. As of 2:38 p.m. ET, the stock was trading near the day's highs, up 4.7%. That's helped give the stock a nearly 10% gain just over the last month.

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Tesla may really have the lead in autonomous driving

Tesla doesn't have any fully autonomous, driverless vehicles on the road. One would think the competition is way ahead, as Alphabet's Waymo is currently generating revenue from its robotaxi service, providing over 250,000 driverless rides per week. Yet a partnership announced by Waymo this week indicates that Tesla may really have the advantage.

Tesla plans to finally have driverless vehicles on the road in Austin by next month. It then plans to add niche cybercabs to its vehicle fleet in the coming months.

Tesla will soon be adding a Cybercab to its fleet of electric cars. Image source: Tesla.

Waymo is now partnering with Toyota to help deploy its technology to more cars on the road. That would provide more data for artificial intelligence (AI) models to train and improve self-driving cars. That's exactly what Tesla has already been doing with its millions of EVs and massive AI infrastructure investments.

Tesla has been making large investments to grow its AI compute power. In its recent first-quarter update, it noted, "AI is a major pillar of growth for Tesla." One beneficiary of that will be its driverless vehicle plans.

Investors are now anticipating that launch, which is just weeks away. Investors are getting ahead of a successful showing of its fully autonomous technology. If that isn't on schedule or as impressive as expected, though, expect shares to plummet from here.

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Howard Smith has positions in Alphabet and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.