Uber has an offer for autonomous vehicle manufacturers: we’ve got it.
The food transportation and delivery company has launched a new division called Uber Autonomous Solutions designed to take over all the tasks involved in operating a robotaxi, self-driving truck or robotic sidewalk delivery, including software and support services.
The initiative, announced Monday, formalizes what Uber has been quietly working on for several years.
Uber has amassed partnerships with nearly two dozen companies involved in autonomous vehicle technology in every use case, from robotic axes and trucking to sidewalk robots and drones. Uber has backed many of these companies — Lucid and Nuro, Waabi and China’s WeRide — investing $100 million to build fast-charging, autonomous vehicle charging stations, and even launched Uber AV Labs, a dedicated engineering team that will collect data for robotaxi partners.
Uber created partnerships and investments; now he wants to become indispensable.
“AV engineering teams should be able to focus on what they do best: building software that can safely power the autonomous world,” said Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, who will lead the initiative. He said the idea is to add “operational depth wherever they need it,” including demand generation, rider experience, customer support or managing day-to-day fleet operations.
The ultimate goal is to help these companies lower their cost per mile and increase speed to market. Uber said it plans to help these partners expand robotaxi deployments to more than 15 cities by the end of this year.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 9, 2026
“The success or failure of autonomy in the world will be determined by whether it can be commercialized, and Uber will be what makes autonomy commercially viable,” said Uber President and COO Andrew MacDonald.
For Uber, that means managing infrastructure like training data and mapping, fleet funding, regulatory services, and managing how robotaxis and other AVs navigate complex events and locations. The company said it uses a fleet of specially equipped Lucid vehicles to collect data that can be shared with partners to train their AI systems.
The new division also plans to address user experience, including customer support. In particular, Uber wants to take over fleet management that would include remote assistance — an issue that has recently received attention from federal lawmakers amid concerns that Waymo is using workers overseas. Fleet management would also cover insurance and employment of people who might need to support these AVs while they are out in the world.
Uber’s move is both existential and opportunistic. The company sold its own AV development unit known as Uber ATG in 2020 after two years of infighting and pressure after one of its test vehicles killed a pedestrian. (Uber sold the division in a comprehensive deal with Aurora.)
It tried to consolidate its position through partnerships and investments. And there was a lot of it. Uber and Waymo have a shared robotaxi service in Atlanta and Austin. The company has also partnered with Chinese firms Baidu, Momenta and Pony.ai, delivery bots Cartken, Starship and Serve, and UK automated driving startup Wayve, as well as robot taxi developers AVride and Motional, to name a few. It plans to launch a robotaxi service with Volkswagen in Los Angeles by the end of 2026 — though it won’t be driverless until 2027.
While those give Uber some protection, they don’t make up for lost revenue if those companies disrupt its own food trucking and delivery business, which today is powered by human drivers. Uber hopes this new division will.