Uber is eyeing an autonomous vehicle empire, and executives are ready to spend $10 billion over the next few years to achieve it, according to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “We expect to commit over $10 billion of capital over the coming years to bring AVs to market at scale,” Khosrowshahi said in prepared remarks ahead of the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. “That progress was evident this quarter. AVs are live on Uber in 7 cities, on track for as many as 15 by year-end.” Some of that investment will go into building necessary infrastructure before putting autonomous vehicles on the roads en masse, and another good portion of that investment will go towards expanding the vehicles’ service areas globally. Khosrowshahi said that Uber plans to expand operations to 28 cities around the world by the end of 2028, a jump that would have the company quadruple its operations in less than three years. “Our ambition is straightforward: to become the world’s leading commercialization platform for autonomous vehicles,” Khosrowshahi said in the earnings call.
Uber has teamed up with more than 30 companies in this effort. One of those partners, Wayve, just secured a permit to begin rolling out the companies’ joint robotaxi service in London. Autonomous driving is seen as an existential matter for Uber. Backed by some early evidence, Uber investors fear that as robotaxi services like Waymo become more commonplace, the competition will put a significant strain on Uber’s ride-hailing business, compounding the pressure on the company to stay ahead of the curve.
