I guess Uber gave up on their own autonomous vehicles. Interesting that it seems like Waymo who took the most cautious approach seems to be the last real contender standing.
Cruise and Zoox are still in the game.
Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
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Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#22I guess Uber gave up on their own autonomous vehicles. Interesting that it seems like Waymo who took the most cautious approach seems to be the last real contender standing.
Uber sold off its own self-driving division back in 2020: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/12/uber-sells-self-driving... so this kind of partnership has probably been looming for a while.
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#23So now Uber is going to be a gazillion dollar company? Wasn't that sort of their value hypothesis?
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#24This is fascinating, obviously it makes a tonne of sense for uber as a platform to offer waymo's autonomous vehicles. The first question I had though was "who extracts value here". Does Waymo get to demand human-driver level prices and therefore capture loads of value or does Uber actually capture the value because they're where the customers are. But then I realised... it doesn't matter. Waymo is part of Alphabet, a…
To me, the HTR (hard to replicate) tech is FSD. Google could bang out a ride booking app in a weekend.
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#25Uber moving strategically into the beginning of their late game. Interesting times.
I suspect that Uber's main added value is a "safer" way for Waymo to increase the reach of their technology with lesser blowback against their own reputation (Uber did this, Uber did that ...), and to make it more mature, even more than the money potentially being exchanged here.
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#26Uber moving strategically into the beginning of their late game. Interesting times. I suspect that Uber's main added value is a "safer" way for Waymo to increase the reach of their technology with lesser blowback against their own reputation (Uber did this, Uber did that ...), and to make it more mature, even more than the money potentially being exchanged here.
Do we have a proof that this means that they're ready for the late game, as opposed to just investors being desperate?
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#27After Uber hired and stole technology from Waymo, which they got caught and the engineer prison time I believe (?), looks like now they are going to go the route they should have always gone since they didn't have the technical capability to pull it off.. partnership.
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#28Uber moving strategically into the beginning of their late game. Interesting times. I suspect that Uber's main added value is a "safer" way for Waymo to increase the reach of their technology with lesser blowback against their own reputation (Uber did this, Uber did that ...), and to make it more mature, even more than the money potentially being exchanged here.
> a "safer" way for Waymo to increase the reach of their technology with lesser blowback against their own reputation (Uber did this, Uber did that ...)
They are still Waymo-branded vehicles. Attempting deflection wouldn’t go well. This is a risky integration pursued for scale.
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#29If I can't bike or bus it, taxis paid with cash is still my first preference.
This doesn't work in my city, taxis will literally just not show up. I know that sounds weird but you'll call, request a time and place and then be at the time and place and... nothing
Re: Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alphabet has a large stake in Uber. They don’t need to own it outright to realize huge returns.
How much of Uber does Alphabet own? They do not show up in the top 10 list here, so presumably 1% at most? https://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=UBER https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/uber/holders/ Seems like pocket change compared to Alphabet’s other investments.
According to this they own part of it: