Ten years ago, Travis Kalanick, then CEO of Uber, said he saw autonomous vehicles as an existential threat to the ride-sharing company’s business model.
“What would happen if we weren’t part of that future? If we weren’t part of the question of autonomy? Then the future is slipping away from us,” Kalanick said. Business Insider.
In the years that followed, Uber opted for a strategy which, rather than seeing it build and operate its own autonomous carsputs it on track to become the place where riders can connect to any ride, driven by human or robot. “We believe there will be many AV players in the world, and we want to be the go-to business platform for all of them,” current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told investors in 2024. Since then, the company has Signature of agreements with more than 25 major robotaxi playerswith driverless vehicles from Waymo, Nuro, Baidu and Volkswagen’s MOIA available or soon to be available on the Uber app in several cities around the world.
Now, according to documents seen by WIRED and another obtained through a public records request, Uber lobbyists are pushing to have the strategy written into law. Company officials have pressed lawmakers to deploy autonomous vehicles on what they call “hybrid networks,” where human drivers work alongside robots as new technology develops.
In New Jersey, a lobbyist representing Uber took the strategy even further by circulating legislation that would require, for a period of three years, any platform offering driverless ride-sharing services to have human drivers provide 85% of its trips.
This language would likely prevent developers of autonomous vehicles, including Waymo, ZooxAnd Teslato operate their own ride-sharing apps in the state, thereby forcing them to use another ride-sharing app if they hope to enter the market and limiting competition for Uber, the nation’s reigning leader.
An Uber representative presented a version of the proposal to New Jersey state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, according to his chief of staff, Ayla Rios. Zwicker is the sponsor of a Invoice currently being considered by the state Legislature, which would establish New Jersey’s first set of rules governing self-driving cars on public roads. Language proposed by Uber lobbyists restricting autonomous robo-taxi hailing apps is not currently part of the bill, which could come up for a vote this fall.
The New Jersey bill is the first proposed in the country to limit the operation of Tesla’s robotaxis, as it requires AV developers to use several sensors to power your softwarerather than just cameras, as Tesla’s technology does. It would also require vehicles to be operated in emergencies using steering wheels and brake pedals, something purpose-built robotaxis like Zoox’s do not have.
In Washington, DC, where autonomous vehicle developers, including Waymo, are engaged in A spearAfter waging a months-long battle to allow robotaxi services to operate in the District, Uber representatives also sought to ensure that “hybrid networks” would be the future of ride-sharing.
A bill introduced by City Council member Charles Allen in April would allow driverless services on public roads in Washington under certain conditions. In an email sent more than a week before the legislation was introduced and obtained by WIRED through a public records request, Uber lobbyist LáVita Gardner thanked an Allen staffer for committing to allowing ride-sharing companies like Uber to participate in the district’s autonomous vehicle program. “Allowing hybrid networks will be essential for a smooth transition that addresses both technology and human factors,” Gardner wrote. (The DC bill will have a hearing on Monday and has not yet been voted on.)
In a written statement to WIRED, Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen says the company supports the expansion of autonomous vehicle technology, but that the AV industry’s policy proposals have been “largely unworkable” because they have failed to address workers’ issues and/or “attempted to cynically exclude competitors and create monopolies.” Edwardsen says the industry’s failure to pass autonomous vehicle regulations in several states this year, including Maryland and new Yorkis proof that “it’s clear it’s time to try a different approach.”
Edwardsen says New Jersey’s proposal was “a compromise that we think could help get us across the finish line” given union opposition to the autonomous vehicle bill. He says Uber is fighting in Washington, D.C., to ensure ride-hailing companies can participate in the proposed autonomous vehicle program alongside AV companies that run their own apps.
“The New Jersey and DC proposals that we opposed have elements that would reduce broadcast competition,” he said.
In a written statement, Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher said the company “does not support efforts to limit AVs to specific types of networks, and we would welcome changes clarifying that different types of networks can work.”
Zoox did not respond to a request for comment.
Waymo and Uber are business partners, with Uber providing exclusive access to driverless Waymo rides through its app in Atlanta and Austin. But evidence of a strained relationship has been leaked to the public in recent months, as shown Business Insider reported. At the end of April, Praveen Neppalli, CTO of Uber, published on X a video of what he called a “scary Waymo moment,” when one of the company’s autonomous vehicles appeared to approach a public bus. Waymo and Uber abandoned a more limited pilot partnership in Phoenix last month.
Waymo leads the race for driverless vehicles in the United States. It says it serves 500,000 journeys a week across eleven metros and plans to expand even further this year, including in London.
Hybrid networks
The lobbying strategy is an escalation for Uber, but it is consistent with how the company has publicly presented the best and safest way to introduce autonomous vehicle technology into ride-hailing services.
In May, the company released a political document arguing that a “gradual transition” to driverless vehicles will protect users, drivers and cities themselves. According to the company, hybrid networks ensure that human drivers (and the businesses they power) will have a role to play in the years to come. “The path forward must be purposefully constructed, informed by evidence, and grounded in shared responsibility,” the document says.
In prepared testimony to be presented before the D.C. City Council on Monday, Harry Hartfield, Uber’s director of autonomous vehicles and AI policy, is expected to say that AVs and human drivers are already in direct competition in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where driver earnings declined last year. “One AV in California now pretty much does the work of four drivers,” he will say, according to prepared testimony.
The call for caution is a turnaround for Uber, which spent its early years exploiting the gray areas of city and state taxi regulations and sometimes, as the New York Times reports, completely mislead the legislators as they attempted to suppress the growth of ride-sharing services. Uber has attracted criticism for years from the unions And drivers themselves for insufficient pay and for fight to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees entitled to benefits.
Uber has resisted regulating autonomous vehicles as it tried to develop its own self-driving technology. In 2016, Anthony Levandowski, then head of the program shipped all Uber test AVs from California to Arizona after California regulators insisted it seek a permit to test driverless cars there. Two years later, Arizona banned Uber’s self-driving cars After test vehicle hits and kills woman. Uber officially stop its autonomous vehicle program in 2020. The same year, Levandowski was sentenced to 18 months in prison For steal thousands of files of what was then Google’s self-driving car program, where he worked. (Levandowski was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2021.)
In a LinkedIn post published in May, after Uber released its “hybrid networks” policy paper, Uber President and COO Andrew Macdonald recognized ride-hailing company’s new stance on regulation “might seem ironic.”
“We did not look hard enough at the societal implications or consider what the world outside the walls of Uber headquarters thought about how we were going to build,” Macdonald wrote. “The consequences have been well documented: regulatory battles and a corporate crisis that have damaged trust for years. »
