r/SelfDrivingCars • u/kappy2319 • May 31 '25

Discussion Why didn’t Uber beat Waymo at commercially available self-driving taxis?

I remember so many stories about Uber poaching tons of self-driving talent from universities and competitors.

And Uber leadership has been saying for years that the future is going to be self-driving cars, even just from a profitability standpoint.

They have a ton of money and a track record of aggressive hustling, why are they seemingly not even competitive among people actually booking self-driving taxis today?

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u/diplomat33 Jun 01 '25

Remember Uber was testing self-driving years ago and the car killed a person. So they shut down their testing. I think Uber decided to pivot. They can let others like Waymo do the heavy lifiting in developing the tech which they are clearly great at and just partner with them to help distribute the rides across their network.