The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled off the ultimate flirt last week, coming within less than a point of the 20,000 mark on Friday before nestling in just under that record.
As we head into Monday’s trade, the Dow Jones will make another run at 20K. Meanwhile, a few blue chips will be in the spotlight thanks to headlines from the weekend, including Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Here’s what’s happening with these juggernauts:
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)
Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant will now be offered in at least one major automotive company’s vehicles.
Volkswagen AG (ADR) (OTCMKTS:VLKAY) announced that the popular virtual assistant — which is in the Echo speakers and a slate of other voice-activated products announced at CES 2017 — will be used in its vehicles.
Alexa will help Volkswagen owners navigate through their cars’ settings and functions in an easier and more convenient manner, taking voice commands and reacting appropriately.
The assistant will be integrated into the company’s Car-Net system, which has been around since 2013. Users will be able to connect their cars to smartphones, unlock or locate their vehicle and monitor their speeds with Alexa.
The Amazon product will also inform users if the airbags are about to deploy, it will add destinations to the car’s navigation systems, check their fuel levels, lock or unlock their vehicle from home and more.
AMZN stock is up more than 6% in the young year.
Alphabet Inc (GOOGL)
Alphabet vehicles will be hitting the road, and soon.
Chrysler Pacificas with Google’s self-driving technology will be unleashed onto public roads in late January, the tech giant announced over the weekend at the North American International Auto Show.
Waymo — the Google self-driving project — is producing the technology for the Alphabet product. This means that the company will build its own cameras, sensors and matching technologies.
Lidar sensors will be key to bringing this autonomous driving concept to life, consisting of laser-mapping technology that is more advanced than simply using cameras to monitor the vehicle’s surroundings.
GOOG shares are up a little more than 4% so far this year.
Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA)
Tesla is also making moves toward advancing self-driving technology for generations to come, starting today.
The electric car giant tweeted a message Sunday morning, detailing that the company’s most advanced autopilot functions will roll out to the entire fleet of TSLA vehicles on Monday.
The software, known as HW2, is already functional in 1,000 cars. It will be unleashed to all other vehicles, but will run in “shadow mode” until more data is gathered. Tesla will wait to get a more tangible idea of when the technology will be widely available across its products.
An initial version of the Tesla software was released in active mode last week to 1,000 cars.
TSLA shares are up 7% year-to-date.
