Uber has a pitch for autonomous automobile makers: we obtained this.
The ride-hailing and meals supply firm has launched a brand new division known as Uber Autonomous Options designed to tackle all of the duties related to working a robotaxi, self-driving truck, or sidewalk supply robotic enterprise, together with software program and help providers.
The initiative, introduced Monday, formalizes what Uber has been not so quietly engaged on for a number of years now.
Uber has amassed partnerships with practically two dozen autonomous automobile expertise firms throughout each use case, from robotaxis and trucking to sidewalk supply robots and drones. Uber has backed many of those firms — Lucid and Nuro, Waabi, and China’s WeRide — invested $100 million to construct fast-charging, autonomous-vehicle charging stations, and even launched Uber AV Labs, a specialised engineering staff that may collect knowledge for robotaxi companions.
Uber has made the partnerships and investments; now it needs to make itself indispensable.
“AV tech groups ought to be capable of deal with what they do finest: constructing software program that may safely energy an autonomous world,” stated Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s international head of autonomous mobility and supply, who can be main the initiative. The concept, he stated, is so as to add “operational depth wherever they want it,” together with demand technology, rider expertise, buyer help, or managing the day-to-day fleet operations.
The tip purpose is to assist these firms scale back their prices per mile and enhance the velocity to market. Uber stated it plans to assist these companions scale robotaxi deployments to more than 15 cities by the end of this year.
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June 9, 2026
“What’s going to find out the success or failure of autonomous on the earth is whether or not it may be commercialized, and Uber goes to be the factor that makes autonomy commercially viable,” Uber President and COO Andrew MacDonald stated.
For Uber which means dealing with infrastructure like coaching knowledge and mapping, fleet financing, regulatory providers, and managing how robotaxis and different AVs navigate complicated occasions and venues. The corporate stated it’s utilizing a fleet of specifically outfitted Lucid automobiles to gather knowledge that may be shared with companions to allow them to practice their AI programs.
The brand new division additionally plans to sort out consumer expertise, together with buyer help. Notably, Uber needs to take over fleet administration, which would come with distant help — a difficulty that lately acquired consideration from federal lawmakers over issues Waymo makes use of staff abroad. Fleet administration would additionally cowl insurance coverage and using the people who may have to help these AVs after they’re out on the earth.
Uber’s transfer is each existential and opportunistic. The corporate bought its in-house AV growth unit often called Uber ATG in 2020, following two years of inner struggles and strain after one in all its check automobiles killed a pedestrian. (Uber bought off the division in a complicated cope with Aurora.)
It has tried to shore up its place by partnerships and investments. And there have been lots. Uber and Waymo have a shared robotaxi service in Atlanta and Austin. The corporate has additionally locked up partnerships with Chinese language corporations Baidu, Momenta, and Pony.ai, sidewalk supply bot firms Cartken, Starship, and Serve, and the U.Ok.-based automated driving tech startup Wayve, in addition to robotaxi builders AVride and Motional, to call a couple of. It has plans to launch a robotaxi service with Volkswagen in Los Angeles by the top of 2026 — though it received’t be driverless till 2027.
These do present Uber with some safety, but it surely doesn’t present a substitute to any income misplaced if these firms erode its personal ride-hailing and meals supply enterprise that’s at this time powered by human drivers. Uber is hoping this new division will.
