Uber has a new pitch for autonomous vehicle makers: they have it covered. The ride-hailing and food delivery company has launched a new division called Uber Autonomous Solutions. This division is designed to handle all the tasks associated with operating a robotaxi, self-driving truck, or sidewalk delivery robot business, including software and support services.
The initiative, announced Monday, formalizes work Uber has been conducting for several years. Uber has amassed partnerships with nearly two dozen autonomous vehicle technology companies across every use case, from robotaxis and trucking to sidewalk delivery robots and drones. Uber has backed many of these companies, such as Lucid, Nuro, Waabi, and China’s WeRide. It has invested to build fast-charging, autonomous vehicle charging stations and launched Uber AV Labs, a specialized engineering team that gathers driving data for robotaxi partners. Having made these partnerships and investments, Uber now aims to make itself indispensable.
The idea is to let autonomous vehicle technology teams focus on their core strength: building software that can safely power an autonomous world. Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, who is leading the initiative, stated the goal is to add operational depth wherever needed. This includes demand generation, rider experience, customer support, and managing day-to-day fleet operations. The end goal is to help these companies reduce their costs per mile and increase their speed to market. Uber plans to help its partners scale robotaxi deployments to more than 15 cities by the end of this year.
Uber’s President and COO, Andrew MacDonald, said that what will determine the success or failure of autonomy in the world is whether it can be commercialized, and Uber intends to be the entity that makes autonomy commercially viable. For Uber, this means handling infrastructure like training data and mapping, fleet financing, regulatory services, and managing how robotaxis navigate complex events. The company is using a fleet of specially equipped Lucid vehicles to collect data to share with partners for training their AI systems.
The new division also plans to tackle user experience, including customer support. Notably, Uber wants to take over fleet management, which would include remote assistance, insurance, and employing the humans who might support these autonomous vehicles in the field. The issue of remote assistance recently received attention from federal lawmakers concerned about companies using overseas workers.
Uber’s move is both existential and opportunistic. The company sold its in-house autonomous vehicle development unit, Uber ATG, in 2020 following internal struggles and a fatal incident involving a test vehicle. It has since tried to shore up its position through partnerships and investments. Uber and Waymo have a shared robotaxi service in Atlanta and Austin. The company has also locked up partnerships with Chinese firms Baidu, Momenta, and Pony.ai, sidewalk delivery bot companies Cartken, Starship, and Serve, the U.K.-based startup Wayve, and robotaxi developers like AVride and Motional. It plans to launch a robotaxi service with Volkswagen in Los Angeles by the end of 2026, though it will not be driverless until 2027.
These partnerships provide Uber with some protection, but they do not replace revenue that could be lost if autonomous companies erode its human-driven ride-hailing and food delivery business. Uber is hoping this new division will address that challenge.