Uber presents a proposal to makers of self-driving vehicles: we’ve got it covered.

The company specializing in ride-hailing and food delivery has introduced a new division named Uber Autonomous Solutions, aimed at managing all aspects of running a robotaxi, self-driving truck, or sidewalk delivery robot venture, encompassing software and support services.

This initiative, revealed on Monday, formally establishes what Uber has been discreetly developing over recent years.

Uber has formed collaborations with almost twenty autonomous vehicle technology companies across the board, from robotaxis and trucking to sidewalk delivery robots and drones. The company has financially supported many of these businesses — such as Lucid, Nuro, Waabi, and China’s WeRide — invested $100 million to develop fast-charging stations for autonomous vehicles, and even created Uber AV Labs, a dedicated engineering team focused on collecting data for robotaxi collaborators.

Uber has established these partnerships and investments; now it aims to position itself as essential.

“AV tech teams should concentrate on their core strengths: developing software that can safely operate in an autonomous landscape,” stated Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, who will oversee the initiative. The goal, he explained, is to provide “operational support wherever needed,” including generating demand, enhancing rider experience, customer assistance, or overseeing daily fleet management.

The ultimate aim is to aid these companies in lowering their per-mile expenses and expediting their market introduction. Uber announced plans to assist its partners in scaling robotaxi operations to over 15 cities by the end of this year.

“The key to autonomous success or failure in the world lies in its commercialization, and Uber will be pivotal in making autonomy commercially viable,” stated Uber President and COO Andrew MacDonald.

For Uber, this entails managing infrastructure aspects such as training data, mapping, fleet financing, regulatory compliance, and overseeing how robotaxis and other AVs navigate intricate situations and locations. The firm mentioned it uses a fleet of specially outfitted Lucid vehicles to gather data that can be shared with partners to train their AI systems.

The new division also aims to enhance user experience, including customer service. Importantly, Uber intends to assume control over fleet management, which would involve remote assistance — an area that has drawn scrutiny from federal legislators due to concerns over Waymo’s use of overseas workers. Fleet management would also encompass offering insurance and hiring personnel who may be required to support these AVs in real-world scenarios.

Uber’s action is both a matter of survival and seizing opportunities. The company divested its internal AV development unit, known as Uber ATG, in 2020, following two years of internal challenges and the fallout from one of its test vehicles fatally striking a pedestrian. (Uber sold the division in a complex arrangement with Aurora.)

It has worked to bolster its standing through partnerships and investments, and there have been numerous. Uber and Waymo operate a joint robotaxi service in Atlanta and Austin. The company has also secured collaborations with Chinese companies such as Baidu, Momenta, and Pony.ai, sidewalk delivery bot firms like Cartken, Starship, and Serve, and the UK-based automated driving tech startup Wayve, alongside robotaxi developers AVride and Motional, among others. Additionally, it plans to initiate a robotaxi service with Volkswagen in Los Angeles by late 2026 — although it won’t be fully driverless until 2027.

These partnerships do offer Uber some level of protection, but they do not offset any revenue lost should these companies undermine its current ride-hailing and food delivery business reliant on human drivers. Uber hopes this new division will fill that gap.