Some of Uber’s passenger transport and food delivery services will be offered by the autonomous or driverless vehicles of Waymo – a subsidiary of Alphabet – later this year in Arizona, the United States, the companies announced on Tuesday.
Uber customers will be able to use a certain number of Waymo self-driving vehicles for rides and deliveries in an area of 180 square miles from the greater Phoenix area, Arizona, they said in a blog post Tuesday.
“Now, we’re partnering to bring together Waymo’s world-leading autonomous driving technology with the massive scale of Uber’s ride-sharing and delivery networks.”, the companies stressed in the statement.
Through this collaboration, Uber users will be able to request a Waymo vehicle through the application Waymo One in more than 180 square miles (about 466 square kilometers) and this will be “the largest fully autonomous service area in the world”, indicates.
The executive director of uber, Dara Khosrowshahiassured that fully autonomous driving is quickly becoming part of everyday life and was pleased to bring Waymo technology to Uber to provide, he said, a “safe, enjoyable and fully electric and autonomous experience”.
Commercializing fully autonomous vehicles, especially robotaxis, has been more difficult than expected, with strict regulations, complicated technology and huge investments forcing some to cut jobs and even go out of business.
For Uber, this is a boost to its self-driving ambitions as its car rental service reaches pre-pandemic levels.
“Fully autonomous driving is quickly becoming a part of everyday life, and we’re excited to bring Waymo’s amazing technology to the Uber platform.noted CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
friends and rivals
The deal also unites two bitter rivals. Uber and Waymo got into a bitter public dispute over trade secrets in 2017 after Waymo filed a lawsuit alleging that one of its former engineers who became head of Uber’s self-driving vehicle project took thousands of confidential documents with him.
uber finally agreed to pay waymo $245 million in shares and settled the case.
Last year, waymo and Uber’s freight unit have partnered to help customers deploy autonomous trucks more efficiently.
With information from Reuters and EFE
Source: Gestion
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