• by Tanya Gazdik , August 25, 2024

Uber and General Motors have agreed to a multiyear partnership that will include driverless Uber rides as soon as next year.

The announcement comes as GM-owned Cruise continues to recover from an October incident that resulted in the pausing of its robotaxi business.

A pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a driverless Cruise vehicle after she was first struck by a human driver in another car.

As of June 2024, Cruise has resumed supervised autonomous driving in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, in addition to its ongoing testing in Dubai.

“In 2016, Uber aimed to develop its own autonomous vehicle technology and partnered with Volvo to do so,” according to CNBC. “But it abandoned the effort after a 2018 incident, in which an Uber self-driving car struck and killed a woman named Elaine Herzberg as she was walking her bicycle across a road in Tempe, Arizona. The Uber safety driver on board at the time, Rafaela Vasquez, was ultimately held legally liable for the incident.”

Uber already is partnered with Google-owned Waymo to offer driverless rides or food delivery to Uber users via robotaxis in Phoenix. Waymo is already delivering 100,000 paid robotaxi rides per week in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

“The deal mirrors Uber’s partnership with self-driving group Waymo in the city of Phoenix, and is part of its push to become the go-to platform for consumers looking to ride in autonomous vehicles,” according to The Financial Times.  “In the latest quarter, the number of autonomous trips on Uber grew by six times year over year, via the company’s 10 partnerships that include Waymo.”

This isn’t the first time GM has partnered with a ride-haling company. 

“GM invested $500 million in Lyft in early 2016, with plans to eventually develop a fleet of autonomous vehicles that could be summoned using Lyft’s mobile app,” according to CNBC. “That never happened, as GM decided to instead launch its own vehicles and network through Cruise.”

The companies did not offer financial details of the arrangement but said it will include a dedicated number of Chevrolet Bolt-based autonomous vehicles.

“Once the service is launched, when an Uber rider requests a qualifying ride on the Uber app, they may be given the option of choosing a self-driving Cruise vehicle,” according to the Detroit Free Press. “Cruise spokeswoman Tiffany Testo said Cruise remains focused on ‘relaunching our own driverless app and service. The launch of this partnership will follow that and will be separate from the rides offered on their platform.’”