Uber is offloading as much as it can as the pandemic continues to decimate demand for ride-hailing.
On Monday, self-driving technology company Aurora announced it was acquiring Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, or ATG, which houses its self-driving vehicle unit.
As part of the deal, Uber is investing $400 million in Aurora, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join the Aurora board. Now, Amazon-backed Aurora is valued at $10 billion.
This hasn’t been the only pandemic negotiation from Uber. The company is reportedly in talks with Joby Aviation to take over its Elevate flying taxi division. Back in May, Uber dumped its electric bicycle and scooter rental business, Jump, onto Lime. Now it’s ditching its self-driving vehicles.
In March 2021 it will be three years since an Uber self-driving car struck and killed a woman walking a bicycle across an Arizona street. While Aurora made sure to highlight Uber’s reworked technology and thorough safety procedures in the announcement about the acquisition, it conspicuously glossed over what prompted the overhaul to basically everything about Uber’s autonomous vehicles.
An Aurora spokesperson said, “Uber ATG has an incredibly talented team, who has made tremendous strides in autonomous technology and safety.” The company is “working directly” with Uber employees during the transition, so it sounds like there shouldn’t be layoffs right away.
Aurora has focused on self-driving trucks more recently, but the acquisition moves the company up front for passenger pick-ups and self-driving taxi services. That’s Uber’s bread and butter.
Uber self-driving car development had slowed down in the past year, but its latest development was a self-driving car with Volvo. Aurora didn’t announce anything about continuing the Volvo partnership, but a spokesperson said, “We are always open and interested to work with world-leading partners like Volvo.”