Waymo To Operate Autonomous Vehicles On Uber’s Network

Uber and Waymo are partnering to offer autonomous vehicle rides on Uber’s network.

So much water has passed under the bridge in the last five years that it’s almost possible to forget how surprising this is. But long ago, Waymo (and its parent, Alphabet) sued Uber for trade secret theft, related to its acquisition of Otto, the self-driving start-up founded by ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski.

People like Eric Schmidt were getting deposed! Uber CEO Travis Kalanick exited the company, in part due to the fallout.

Here we are, all these years (not that many!) later, and Waymo is partnering with Uber to offer autonomous vehicles.

The advantage for each side is obvious – Waymo can use Uber’s massive customer network to scale its fleet, and take advantage of Uber’s human drivers to provide service to customers when demand for rides outstrips what Waymo can supply.

And Uber gets AVs onto its network. When Uber sold off its own Advanced Technology Group to Aurora a few years ago, the bet was that eventually it would be able to license autonomous driving from a variety of different providers in the future. That list of providers has dwindled, but Waymo remains at the forefront.