Is Uber Getting Back Into Robotaxi Development?

The New York Times reports that former CEO and Uber founder Travis Kalanick is in talks to buy Pony.AI, apparently on behalf of Uber. Kalanick was kicked out as Uber CEO in 2017 after several incidents. These included allegations of a bro culture in the company that had led to sexual harassment of female employees and a toxic corporate culture, as well as conflicts with authorities in San Francisco and California because the Uber Advanced Technology Group (Uber ATG) had circumvented or simply ignored approval procedures in the development and testing of autonomous cars. Uber got into a legal dispute with Google because Anthony Levandowski, a former Google employee hired by Uber, had stolen thousands of internal Google documents relating to the development of self-driving technology and was sentenced to prison.

A year later, there was a fatal accident in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, where an Uber test vehicle drove a woman to her death. Uber then stopped all testing and shortly afterwards sold Uber ATG to Aurora. Uber took shares in Aurora, handed over hundreds of employees and even invested in the Mountain View-based startup, probably hoping to get a foot in the door for robotaxis. But Aurora now seems to be focusing primarily on autonomous trucks. Uber agreed to work with a number of other companies to operate robotaxis, including Waymo, where Waymos can now be ordered via the Uber app last week. But is this enough to keep Uber relevant?

Uber apparently no longer thinks this way, because the situation now seems to have changed. Waymo’s rapid expansion of its robotaxi service has put Uber and Lyft under pressure. Waymo’s market share in San Francisco is already ahead of Lyft’s and now looks set to overtake Uber. In addition, Waymo users are much more loyal to Waymo’s robotaxi service than Uber and Lyft users.

This is why Uber now seems to be on fire and requires desperate measures. By hiring Uber founder Travis Kalanick, who was fired 8 years ago, to find a self-driving technology developer to buy and get their own driverless robotaxis on the road as quickly as possible. The choice seems to have fallen on Pony.AI, with whom, according to the New York times article, talks are being held about an acquisition.

This article was also published in German.