Because Uber scraps (a bit) the autonomous car
Uber sold its autonomous car division to startup Aurora. Here because
Uber decided to abandon efforts to develop its own self-driving car and decided to hand everything over to a Silicon Valley startup. The ride-hailing company's decision, according to The Guardian , concerned Uber's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) division, sold for $ 4 billion to Aurora, a start-up that produces sensors and software for autonomous vehicles and backed by Amazon and Sequoia Capital.
WHO IS AURORA
Aurora was founded in 2017 by Chris Urmson, one of the early pioneers of what became the Waymo self-driving taxi company and is made up of Sterling Anderson, the chief product officer, who previously worked at Tesla and Drew Bagnell, the chief technology officer, a founding member of Uber's autonomous driving division.
THE AGREEMENT
The San Francisco-based startup Aurora will therefore buy ATG from Uber for 3.3 billion euros in an agreement that will likely end early next year. Valued at $ 7.25 billion in the spring of 2019, the sale of the self-driving car division at 'clearance prices' “represents both a relief and a setback for Uber. The company is breaking free from an expensive project that it hoped would finally allow it to make a profit, ”noted the German newspaper Deutsche Welle .
UBER WILL INVEST IN AURORA
As part of the deal, Uber will invest $ 400 million in Aurora in exchange for a 26% minority stake. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join the startup's board of directors which in turn will see Japan's Toyota invest in ATG.
For Uber, however, this is not a definitive farewell to autonomous driving: the mobility company has announced that it will still collaborate with Aurora to include driverless cars in its network in the coming years.
“Few technologies promise to improve people's lives with safe, accessible and environmentally friendly means of transport such as self-driving vehicles. For the past five years, our phenomenal ATG team has been at the forefront of this effort and, by joining forces with Aurora, they are now in pole position to deliver on that promise even faster, ”Khosrowshahi said according to The Guardian. .
FIRST THE TRUCKS
In a joint statement, Uber and Aurora said Aurora will focus on self-driving long-haul trucks before tackling other more complicated businesses. Long-haul travel on highways is a much simpler challenge than light-duty vehicles carrying passengers, Urmson said.
UBER'S AMBITIONS IN AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
Developing autonomous technology has been Uber's great ambition since then CEO Travis Kalanick launched the driverless car division in Pittsburgh in 2015, with the goal of reducing costs. At the time, Uber was ahead of rivals like Google and Tesla in the race to develop “robotaxis”. But it suffered a major setback when an Uber self-driving car killed a woman crossing the road in Arizona in 2018. An episode that complicated corporate plans along with the related battles that arose with Google Waymo it sued. Uber for alleged technology theft.
DOUBTS ABOUT THE PROFITABILITY OF THE SECTOR: THE EXAMPLES OF AMAZON AND ZOOM, FORD AND STARSKY
Uber's decision to sell the autonomous driving unit also raises questions about the industry's short- and medium-term profitability. As other developments in the industry foretell: “In June, Amazon bought the self-driving technology company Zoox for half of what it was valued two years ago, similar to the sale of ATG. Driverless truck startup Starsky Robotics closed its doors this year and Ford has pushed its plan to launch a self-driving taxi service until 2022, ”DW points out.
WILL TESLA LAUNCH THE LAW?
But not everyone was discouraged. “I think autonomous driving is like a battery car,” Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Center Automotive Research in Duisburg, Germany, told DW: “It's Tesla that sets things in motion here. The car manufacturers themselves have been very reluctant in recent years. They said it would be too expensive and customers would not pay for this service, ”he continued.
Tesla founder Elon Musk, on the other hand, has brought forth updates that have enabled his vehicles to drive first semi-autonomously and then fully autonomously. "This is a very fast development and everyone else will be forced to follow suit."
VOLKSWAGEN BELIEVES IT
A closer look indicates that this may be the case. Volkswagen Group (VW) CEO Herbert Diess told business magazine Wirtschaftswoche this week that he expects self-driving vehicles to be on the market between 2025 and 2030. The German automaker also said last month that it will increase spending on electric and self-driving cars.
"It will be a race with Tesla," Diess said in a call to investors in November, explaining how VW intended to focus on programming software to help develop self-driving cars. "They are also growing fast."
GOODBYE ALSO TO THE FLYING TAXI DIVISION
In the last few hours, Uber has also sold its flying taxi division, called Uber Elevate, to the Californian aerospace company Joby Aviation. The deal is strikingly similar to the one made with Aurora and represents an attempt to make its assets more profitable after the damage caused by COVID-19.
In fact, the BBC reported that Uber reported a loss of $ 625 million in the last quarter, despite cutting costs in terms of offices and jobs.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/perche-uber-rottama-lauto-autonoma/ on Sun, 13 Dec 2020 06:01:35 +0000.