It’s interesting to me that Uber is expanding its Waymo partnership from Phoenix soon to Austin and Atlanta. It seems that Waymo gets a lot more out of this partnership than does Uber. For Waymo, the benefits are access to Uber’s customer base and also access to Uber’s human-driver fleet, for all sorts of situations in which Waymo cannot meet demand.
For Uber, the benefits seem more intangible.
“We’re thrilled to build on our successful partnership with Waymo, which has already powered fully autonomous trips for tens of thousands of riders in Phoenix,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. “Soon, riders in Austin and Atlanta will be able to experience that same mobility magic, through a new fleet of dedicated autonomous Waymo vehicles, available only on Uber.”
Delighting their customers, I guess, and maybe some amorphous “learnings” that Uber can apply to other partnerships with autonomous driving fleet’s like Cruise.
David Silver 