Uber, Mercedes-Benz to Partner on Self-Driving Cars
CARS.COM — Uber and Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, plan to work together on future self-driving cars that will run on Uber’s ride-hailing network. In a statement announcing the partnership, Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick said the program would be operational “in the coming years.” No timeframe was given, and no specifics about the upcoming Mercedes-Benz-badged and self-driving Uber cars was provided. One thing is for certain, however: Uber does not want to get into the business of building cars.
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In his statement, Kalanick made no secret about Uber wanting to avoid becoming a car company. “Auto manufacturers like Daimler are crucial to our strategy because Uber has no experience making cars – and in fact, making cars is really hard. This became very clear to me after I visited an auto manufacturing plant and saw how much effort goes into designing, testing and building cars.”
Interestingly, the auto plant Kalanick is referencing just happens to be Daimler’s own headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, which he visited in the summer of 2016. At the time, as reported by Bloomberg, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said the two companies could one day become “frenemies,” in the spirit of friendly competition amidst the growing push toward automated driving systems.
Mercedes-Benz showed its hand at the 2016 Paris Motor Show with the Generation EQ concept. The all-electric SUV is powered by twin electric motors, which deliver a total of 402 horsepower to the front and rear axles. Production was promised to begin within three years, with a starting price around $45,000, the equivalent of a “reasonably equipped” GLC-Class.
Speaking with Cars.com in Paris, Jrgen Schenk, director of E-Drive system integration at Daimler, promised “the architecture [in the Generation EQ] goes from the compact car segment up to the S-Class segment.” Schenck said the highly adaptable platform underpinning the Generation EQ concept will lead to “more than 10 variants in other vehicle segments until 2025.”
A chassis like this one could also easily be equipped with the latest autonomous drive systems, developed by Mercedes-Benz in cooperation with Uber. It remains to be seen how these vehicles will be custom-tuned to the needs of Uber’s car-hailing operations or if the program will be limited to select markets. Whatever the case, Uber could certainly use some friends right about now.
The San Francisco-based company has been making headlines, primarily for the wrong reasons. On Jan. 28, Uber sparked a social media firestorm — and inspired a #DeleteUber hashtag — when it appeared to be attempting to undermine a taxi strike staged at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, held to protest Donald Trump’s immigration ban. Uber has also been in a contentious battle with California’s Department of Motor Vehicles regarding the testing and development of self-driving vehicles on public roads.
For the moment, when it comes to working with Daimler and Mercedes-Benz, Uber prefers to focus on positives. “By opening up the Uber platform to Daimler, we can get to the future faster than going it alone,” stated Kalanick. “It’s a future in which our cities and roads will be safer, cleaner and more accessible, and we couldn’t be more excited about what’s next.”
