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General Motors’ autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise has announced a multi-year partnership with Uber.
The deal will allow users to hail Cruise’s self-driving taxis through the Uber app starting in 2025, meaning Uber users have the option to have their trip fulfilled by one of Cruise’s driverless taxis.
The announcement, made yesterday (August 22), comes as Cruise warms up to reintroduce its robotaxi service following a safety incident in October 2023, which resulted in a temporary halt of its operations in California.
Following the incident, the company has resumed testing with human drivers in cities like Dallas, Houston and Phoenix since April.
This isn’t GM’s first foray into ride-hailing partnerships. In early 2016, GM invested $500 million in Lyft, with plans to develop a fleet of autonomous vehicles for Lyft’s platform. However, that initiative never materialized, and GM ultimately chose to launch its own vehicles and network through Cruise.
This partnership adds a new layer to the competitive landscape of autonomous ride-hailing services. Uber has already signed a deal with Google-owned Waymo, another leader in autonomous vehicle technology. Waymo’s self-driving car made its debut on the Uber app in Phoenix in October 2023.
With these partnerships in the bag, Uber is bringing to fruition its plans of having autonomous vehicles under its services. The Transportation services giant had ventured into a deal with Volvo to build its own autonomous vehicles in 2016. This effort was later shelved after an Uber self-driving vehicle hit and killed a woman in 2018 in Arizona.
While specific launch details remain under wraps, the partnership could enable Cruise to tap into Uber’s vast customer base, thereby increasing demand for its robotaxis without the need for significant customer acquisition efforts.
