THE NAVIGATOR

It's good to be back on the pages of Automotive Engineering magazine after several years away. It's been more than a decade since former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick established what was then known as Advanced Technology Group (ATG) to develop its own automated driving system (ADS) and commented that robotaxis were an existential threat to his company. ATG's efforts didn't end well, with a fatal testing crash that killed a civilian. Eventually, Kalanick was pushed out of the company and ATG was sold to Aurora Innovation. Uber is no longer in the business of building an ADS, but it still has dreams of being the biggest operator of robotaxis in the world.

Back in 2017, while ATG was in the midst of trying to develop an ADS, it struck a deal with Mercedes-Benz to deploy its future robotaxis on the Uber platform, much as human drivers do today. The goal was to fill the platform with as many driverless vehicles as possible from as many sources. Uber made it clear it was open to other partnerships. While Mercedes-Benz eventually cancelled the robotaxi that it was developing with Bosch, the idea stuck with Uber.