Uber and Daimler Build Self-Driving Cars Together

Uber and Daimler are teaming up to build self-driving cars. This is particularly great news for me because Uber and Daimler / Mercedes-Benz are two of Udacity’s best partners for the Self-Driving Car Nanodegree Program. I’m glad we’re all working together.

According to the press release by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick:

In the coming years, Daimler has planned to introduce and operate their own self-driving cars on Uber’s ridesharing network.

This is a new and interesting business model that is a little different than what I’ve seen before.

There has been speculation that some automotive manufacturers like Tesla might launch their own mobility services and compete directly with Uber. And there has been speculation that tech companies like Google might manufacture their own vehicles.

In this case, Mercedes-Benz is still manufacturing the vehicles, and they are retaining ownership, but they are deploying them on Uber’s network.

This might be a way for Mercedes-Benz to learn about ride-sharing from Uber, and for Uber to learn about automotive manufacturing from Mercedes-Benz.