What Is Uber Doing in Self-Driving Car Business?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 8:09PM EST · Published Jul 31, 6:20AM EDT

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What Is Uber Doing in Self-Driving Car Business? — © Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Uber, the world’s largest ride-sharing company and one of the most valuable startups ever, is in the self-driving vehicle business. The question is why? Dozens of more technologically qualified companies and larger businesses already dominate the sector. Uber could license technology from some of these.

Uber is at work on self-driving trucks and cars, although there are rumors it will drop out of the truck business. Uber has a division called Uber Advanced Technologies Group (ATG). Its mission: “At ATG, we are ambitious, engaged and excited about transforming the way the world moves.”

Uber claims the business aims to create safe and reliable transportation for everyone. And those people are everywhere, ATG claims.

Uber is up against a list of over two dozen companies, many of which are the largest car companies in the world. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) management recently announced an ambitious multibillion-dollar plan to advance both self-driving electronic and self-driving cars. Its efforts have been matched by the largest car manufacturers in Europe, the United States and Japan.

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Some of the world’s largest software companies also have self-driving initiatives. The most advanced of these was created by Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), the parent of Google. Its Waymo division’s cars have been driven over 8 million miles. Many of these tests have been done on public roads.

Companies that want into the self-driving car business eventually will be divided into two groups. First will be those that have built successful self-driving cars or components to run them. Second will be companies that need this technology, some of which have failed in their own efforts.

Uber should admit it almost certainly will be in the second group, give up its work in the sector and use technologies from companies that have the financial firepower and product development skills to be successful.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.