Uber sends its self-driving cars on a road to nowhere, with indefinite stop at automated truck aspirant Aurora
- Reference: 1607406972
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/12/08/uber_self_driving_cars_sold/
- Source link:
News of the exit came in a statement posted to both [1]Uber’s and [2]Aurora’s websites, opening with “At Aurora” even on Uber’s page.
The substance of the announcement is that Aurora has acquired Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), the team that worked on auto-autos.
Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson said the purchase will give his company tech that means it emerges “best positioned to deliver the self-driving products necessary to make transportation and logistics safer, more accessible, and less expensive.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the ATG has done amazing work, but the combined entity will be “in pole position to deliver on that promise even faster.”
Uber is now a food delivery company with a substantial sideline in taxis [3]READ MORE
Aurora pointed out, however, that it is focussed on delivering an autonomous truck before it moves on to what it calls “light-vehicle products.” Aurora is doing so because long-distance trucking is a less horribly complex problem than navigating cities, and one that poses less risk to human life.
Uber kicked in $400m to take a slice of Aurora. The Register understands the investment guarantees access to future Aurora technologies relevant to the ride-sharing company.
Khosrowshahi didn’t say why Uber let go of ATG, but there are plenty of reasons to do so.
For starters, researching self-driving cars needs needed buckets of money Uber doesn’t have. The company also faces lawsuits over its experimental self-driving car that [4]killed a cyclist . The whole business also has a stench about it after the [5]Anthony Levandowski IP theft affair.
And perhaps Uber just didn’t need the hassle. The company is already fighting on many fronts, including the question of whether its drivers are employees or contractors (although California looks to have [6]handed it a win in November 2020), making sure it isn’t kicked out of London again and numerous other matters besides.
With unemployment high thanks to the COVID-19-caused recession, perhaps the last thing Uber needed was to be seen putting people out of work with driverless cars. ®
Get our [7]Tech Resources
[1] https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2020/Aurora-is-acquiring-Ubers-self-driving-unit-Advanced-Technologies-Group-accelerating-development-of-the-Aurora-Driver/default.aspx
[2] https://aurora.tech/blog/aurora-is-acquiring-ubers-self-driving-unit-advanced
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/09/uber_q3_2020/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2018/05/24/uber_self_driving_software_crash_report/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/05/levandowski_prison_sentence/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/prop_22_lawsuit/
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Uber's Financial Plan
Why would they need to make any profit, most of these startup billion dollar companies don't. The owners are rich, why do they care if the company makes no money. Its not their money they are losing.
Re: Uber's Financial Plan
Because the people lending the tech companies massive amounts of money to eliminate all of the competition in the market by offering their services at a price less than the market price do expect that at some point they will make that (and more) money back somehow.
If they come to the conclusion it ain't happenning then they stop lending them money, at which point Uber has to operate off of their own income, rather than off of "loans". Which in turn means that offering a taxi service at a loss (of multiple billions a quarter) is no longer viable and they have to put their prices up to around the same level as everybody else in the market, which means they are no longer the cheapest thing around and they promptly get eaten alive by real competition.
Uber has near-term vision but...
...self driving is still a long way off and companies like Uber don't have the stomach like the other big tech firms do. This sell off makes sense, they can benefit from the tech when it is ready - and society is ready.
Self driving?
Even self stopping is a nightmare. A company I worked for had to design an independent system to bring the car to a safe stop in the event of a failure, ensuring it wasn't in the middle of an active carriageway. Even that was at the very limit of what is currently possible.
Re: Self driving?
Fully autonomous self driving cars will be a thing around the same time I get a fully functioning Robo-butler™.
There would be more chances to achieve driverless cars with all vehicles under a central control that was glitch free, even that is not currently achievable and likely not very appealing to most people.
Re: Self driving?
There would be more chances to achieve driverless cars with all vehicles under a central control that was glitch free, even that is not currently achievable and likely not very appealing to most people.
I believe it's called a train.
Uber's Financial Plan
Up to now, it seemed Uber's financial plan to profitability was to eliminate driver salaries from its ride-sharing service. How's it going to achieve profits now?