Travis Kalanick is reportedly beginning up a brand new self-driving car firm with “main backing” from Uber, based on The Information. He has reportedly informed individuals he “desires to be extra aggressive in rolling out self-driving expertise than Waymo,” per the report.
The Uber founder can also be contemplating buying Pronto, the autonomous car startup targeted on industrial and mining websites that was created by his former colleague on the ride-hailing firm, Anthony Levandowski. Final yr, Kalanick was stated to be all for shopping for the U.S. arm of Chinese language self-driving car firm Pony AI with backing from Uber, although The Info stated Friday that these talks ended.
Uber didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Kalanick resigned from Uber in 2017 after a confluence of crises on the ride-hail firm. On the time, the corporate was suffering from complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination, which sparked an exterior investigation that resulted in additional than 20 workers being fired.
Earlier than that, Kalanick had created a self-driving division at Uber in 2015. Levandowski performed a giant position in that undertaking after Kalanick lured him away from Google. Uber was finally sued by Google for stealing secrets and techniques associated to its personal self-driving automotive undertaking (which ultimately turned Waymo). The 2 corporations settled, however Levandowski was criminally charged and sentenced to 18 months in jail for his position within the affair. The engineer obtained a last-minute pardon from President Trump on the finish of his first time period.
The corporate stored engaged on the undertaking after Kalanick resigned, together with after considered one of its take a look at automobiles struck and killed a pedestrian in 2018. Kalanick’s successor, Dara Khosrowshahi, shuttered and offered the division to autonomous trucking firm Aurora in 2020.
In a uncommon interview in March 2025, Kalanick expressed remorse that Uber had deserted growing its personal self-driving automobiles.
