Okay.
Uber customers in Austin may notice a new offer when they open the app and hail a ride: an invitation to signal their interest in a Waymo robotaxi.
For now, this doesn’t translate into a Waymo picking them up. But it will soon.
The “interest list,” which launched Wednesday, is part of a partnership between Uber and Waymo to operate a robotaxi service in Austin and Atlanta in early 2025. The service is expected to begin soon in Austin, although neither company would share an official start date. A new co-branded robotaxi was also revealed Wednesday.
The “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service is the latest example of Uber’s push back into autonomous vehicles. Uber divested of its own autonomous vehicle subsidiary, known as Uber ATG, through a complex deal with Aurora in December 2020. Prior to that, ironically, Uber and Waymo were archrivals, going head-to-head in lawsuits alleging Uber stole trade secrets belonging to Waymo (which at the time was part of Google/Alphabet, which today remains a majority shareholder) — Uber eventually settled the suits.
Uber has spent the past couple of years shoring up its position in the emerging robotaxi market. The company has partnered with 14 autonomous vehicle companies that cover ride-hailing, delivery, and trucking — a handful of which are operating commercially. In December, Uber launched robotaxi rides with WeRide in Abu Dhabi and Waymo’s autonomous vehicles have been available on the Uber app in Phoenix since October 2023.
But in Austin and Atlanta, the arrangement with Waymo will be more exclusive.
Under the partnership, only Uber users will be able to hail Waymo’s fleet of autonomous Jaguar I-PACE vehicles. (Waymo has operated its fleet in Phoenix and is now in the process of handing that job over to Moove.) Uber will handle the charging, maintenance, and cleaning of the autonomous vehicles, as well as managing access to the robotaxis via the app. Waymo will still monitor the tech and the autonomous operations, including rider assistance.
When last we checked on Waymo, Uber was not in the picture. I guess they’re just licensing their app, which was surely easier and didn’t require nearly as much of a capital investment as developing their own driverless car would have. Initially, the service will be available in about a 37 square mile section of Austin, including downtown, and will cost the same as an Uber with a driver; Uber says it still plans to employ drivers, though who knows how long-term that is. I’ll be interested to see how much demand there is for this. I can’t say I’m anywhere near ready to trust such a thing, more for the fear that something will glitch and I’ll be stuck in the damn car for who knows how long before some tech support person notices the anomaly, but I’m sure others are. Which would you choose? CNBC and the Statesman have more.
I have definitely already seen people at the curb getting into a driverless Waymo.