Member Spotlight: Uber

Welcome to our Member Spotlight series where we explore the diverse companies developing autonomous vehicles for a safer, more mobile and connected world. We spoke with Uber about how they're partnering with autonomous technology developers to help commercialize their vehicles using the rideshare platform – deploying their vehicles alongside traditional drivers and couriers.

How Is Your Company Advancing Autonomous Vehicles? 

At Uber, it's our mission to reimagine the way the world moves for the better—and it's clear that autonomous vehicles will play a part in our future. With that in mind, we have been building Uber for the road ahead.

Our goal is to become the platform of choice for world leading AV tech developers to deploy their technology — to leverage the power and scale of Uber’s platform to bring safe, reliable, affordable autonomous technology to consumers around the world.

To bring this vision to life, Uber partners with innovative autonomous technology developers to help commercialize their vehicles using Uber’s platform – deploying their vehicles alongside traditional drivers and couriers.

Autonomous vehicles are already available on the Uber platform, as we continue to work with a range of the world’s most innovative autonomous developers in cities around the world. We have partnerships with extraordinary autonomous tech developers across our mobility, delivery and freight businesses, including with sidewalk robot companies. Our end-to-end customer experience for both mobility and delivery has been updated to include trips that are fulfilled by AVs, which include unique education and trip features (trip start, vehicle controls and identification, food retrieval, mapping features) that are necessary for users to have an enjoyable trip experience that don’t have a driver in the loop.

What's an Example Of A Challenge Your Company Is Trying To Solve For?

One example we’re laser focused on solving is the marketplace dynamics of AVs - matching the right demand with the right supply at the right time.

Offering a reliable ridesharing service is a complex feat. It means getting it right on both reliability and price at all times, all while managing highly complicated operations. As we know from the early days of Uber, in most markets we’re likely going to see more demand on a Friday evening than late morning on a Tuesday, and managing the deployment strategy for a fixed number of AV assets is going to be a critical part of this equation. A ridesharing network needs to be able to meet demand lest customers not receive the service they expect, and not leave expensive tech sitting idle. 

Partners are coming to Uber for a range of different reasons. We know that the most important driver of the economics of shared AVs is going to be utilization, and we are focused on helping to step change the utilization of AV assets. As the largest combined mobility and delivery platform in the world – operating in over 10,000 cities with a million trips happening each hour – generating demand for our partners is something we are uniquely positioned to do. 

And there are so many other ways that we are committed to helping our partners solve AV operations at scale - including creating new service offerings for charging, cleaning, maintenance and other depot services, customer support and more.

Why Is The Work Of Your Company Important?

We expect autonomous vehicles to be an increasingly important part of the transportation ecosystem and therefore Uber's business over time. The key question is “how” - and this is a challenge facing many cities and officials thinking about the future of autonomous technology at the moment: what is the right way - on the right timeline - to bring this technology into our communities.

Officials and industry have been focused on safety rules and testing regimes, we’ve been thinking about the realities of AVs at scale – what that means for communities, how they’ll fit into the broader transport ecosystem, and some of the challenges we’ll need to overcome along the way.

We believe that AVs operating alongside traditional drivers - in a ‘hybrid network’ like ours - is the strongest pathway forward. This approach will increase network density, platform reliability and will ultimately win over more customers (and delivery merchants).

What Policy Solutions Are Most Important For Your Company?

We want to see the development of policy solutions with a focus on promoting safety and building consumer confidence in autonomous technology over time. 

Building trust with communities is the rock that the AV industry must be built on. 

At Uber, we embed safety into everything we do. We’re committed to continually improving the safety of our platform for all who use it. This is why we have implemented a comprehensive safety program, in which we review potential AV partners’ approaches to safety before they deploy and operate on the Uber network across mobility and delivery use cases.

We want to see policy solutions that promote the deployment of AVs over time, all while balancing the need for robust safety rules that have communities in mind.

Public policy solutions that enhance consumer trust and build the whole industry’s social license to operate are a critical focus for us - particularly as it pertains to more granular regulations for deployment. Everyone will win when cities and industry work together to optimize regulations.

Why Is Your Company A Member Of AVIA?

As one of the founding members of AVIA, Uber has long been a passionate advocate for helping autonomous vehicles achieve their full potential. 

We have a deep alignment with the Association’s core mission to advocate for the safe and timely deployment of autonomous driving technology, and to work with lawmakers, regulators, and the public to help realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles.

AVIA plays a critical role in ensuring public policy leaders have a nuanced understanding about how autonomous technology can play a positive role in the future of transportation.  

We’re looking forward to continuing our strong collaboration with AVIA to bring this message to a wider audience, and help build an autonomous future around the world.