The technological world is ever-changing and expanding its breadth. The latest innovation of driverless cars has been albeit a bit slow-moving due to many unforeseen circumstances but is now rapidly growing.
The self-driving car company, Waymo has already been running successful self-driving car trips in the Phoenix, Arizona area since 2020, but is on track to grow its reach with a business team-up with Uber. Uber, one of the first and biggest ride-sharing companies, has a rough history with Waymo, as they previously were brought to court by the self-driving car company.
In 2017, Waymo sued Uber after Waymo inherited the self-driving tech they now work on from Google.
The lawsuit alleged that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and a former Google engineer, Anthony Levandowski were collaborating to steal the self-driving tech from Waymo. This suit led to Kalanick testifying in the case and the two parties ultimately negotiated a $245 million settlement paid out to Waymo. The settlement finally occurred in 2018.
Levandowski ended up pleading guilty to criminal charges connected to the suit but was pardoned from serving his 18-month sentence by President Trump in 2021 before he left office. Uber went on to sell the division of the company devoted to self-driving technology development.
Nonetheless, Uber has remained interested in expanding into the self-driving car realm. With driverless cars, Uber would be able to boost their profits since there would be no drivers that they have to pay. Uber is also hoping to further grow their business again, as limiting the number of people in the car for strangers to interact with will help bring up their users post-pandemic. The company has been able to greatly increase its user count already, but it is still in recovery mode from Covid-19, so they hope this will help them out.
Waymo’s benefit from partnering with Uber is that they will expand the areas they cover, as they will be introduced to a bigger clientele through the Uber app. It is currently unknown how the Waymo cars will be delegated to Uber rides and food pick-ups, but it is set to begin soon.
Waymo currently is also in the process of expanding into California by offering rides in San Francisco. They have a hearing that will determine if they can offer around-the-clock self-driving car rides, currently scheduled for June 29th. It is unclear if the Uber partnership will be in effect in San Francisco as well.
