Uber announced on Thursday a new partnership with Volkswagen Group of America to launch fully autonomous vehicles in the U.S. over the next decade.
The German giant will deploy “thousands” of fully autonomous ID. Buzz vehicles starting in Los Angeles before expanding to other states. The vehicles will begin tests “later this year,” and the commercial launch is planned in 2026.
The seven seater model will be equipped with self-driving sensors and software developed by Moia, Volkswagen‘s AG autonomous mobility subsidiary — which has been operating a ride-pooling service in Hannover since 2017.
The testing and launching phases will have “human operators onboard” as a safety measure, only proceeding with fully driverless operations after receiving the necessary permits and clearance from regulatory agencies.
Volkswagen Autonomous Mobility started testing autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, with the ID Buzz electric microbus in 2023. The model used technology developed by Intel’s Mobileye unit including sensors, cameras and LiDAR.
Waymo
Last September, Uber and Waymo expanded their partnership to take the “Waymo One experience to Austin and Atlanta, set to begin in 2025. Uber is responsible for fleet management services, while Waymo is in charge of testing and operations.
Google’s autonomous driving unit revealed that it had already provided “fully autonomous rides to employees in Austin” and expected to “welcome a limited number of early riders into the Waymo One app” before fully shifting to the Uber app this year.
Earlier this year, Alphabet and Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai revealed Waymo had reached “more than 200,000 paid trips” each week across Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco noting that figures have jumped “20 times in less than two years.”
Tesla’s Cybercab
Tesla is set to launch its fully autonomous paid ride service in Austin this June, as revealed by CEO Elon Musk earlier late last year — and confirmed on Tuesday’s first quarter earnings call.
However, Musk said that the service will start with “maybe 10 to 20 vehicles” on “day one” and that, instead of the highly anticipated Cybercab, the autonomous rides will “probably” be using the recently refreshed Model Ys.
In the same call, Elon Musk mocked Waymo when questioned about the Google’s robotaxi unit. Tesla‘s chief executive stated that “the issue with Waymo’s cars is it costs Way-mo [way more] money,” adding later that Tesla’s upcoming Cybercab will cost between “20 to 25%” of Waymo’s.
