May. 17 at 2:48 AM
$RIVN $LCID $GOOGL $UBER
This is Uber trying to have it both ways, and it’s not a great look – take public shots at your partner’s technology with your CTO posting videos mocking Waymo’s driving while calling it “scary” — and then act surprised when that partnership frays.
The real story here is that Uber got spooked. The company once believed it could be the platform layer on top of everyone’s robotaxis, taking a cut of every ride without owning any vehicles. But Waymo’s rapid scaling to 400,000 rides per week proved that AV operators might not need Uber at all. Waymo has its own app. It has its own customers. It’s expanding to new cities without Uber’s help.
So Uber pivoted to asset ownership —
$10 billion worth. The Rivian, Lucid, and Nuro investments are essentially Uber building its own parallel robotaxi fleet to avoid being cut out entirely.
https://electrek.co/2026/05/15/uber-turns-on-waymo-10-billion-robotaxi-alternatives/
