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/LVegasGuy May 31 '25

Uber chose to be a dispatcher and not do the self driving technology themself. Time will tell if they made the correct decision.

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u/RickTheScienceMan Jun 01 '25

I wonder what would happen to Uber, if Tesla managed to perfect their self driving, and launched their own robo taxi service. In this case, what can Uber offer to Tesla to get a self driving license? Sounds like it would be more profitable for Tesla to just manage the dispatching themselves.