Waymo and Uber Freight team up on self-driving trucks

On June 7, Uber Freight and Waymo Via announced a long-term strategic partnership that will combine the companies’ technologies and deploy autonomous trucks at scale across the Uber Freight freight network.

The partnership, which combines Waymo's self-driving technology with Uber Freight's freight network scale and market-leading technology, will allow future customers to deploy autonomous trucks more efficiently.

Based on this partnership, Waymo's future customers can use Uber Freight to more efficiently plan fleets of autonomous and human-driven trucks.In the future, operators purchasing trucks equipped with the Waymo Driver will be able to join Uber Freight's marketplace through the app and seamlessly deploy their self-driving trucks on the Uber Freight network.These applications will provide a streamlined experience for cargo loading, booking, fulfillment, trailer transfer and payment, and human drivers and autonomous trucks can easily collaborate to deliver goods in a hybrid freight network.

Uber Freight’s software acts as a middleman, connecting truck drivers with trucking companies to reduce shipping costs and costly empty freight miles (miles accrued without earning money while driving an empty container or trailer).

But the two companies did not disclose when their partnership could apply to paying customers, and declined to disclose the financial details of the agreement.

Lior Ron, head of Uber Freight, said, “Uber Freight’s extensive, efficient, and reliable digital network is critical to enabling autonomous trucks. We uniquely leverage our scale and market expertise to be the network of choice for deploying autonomous trucks, enabling the industry as a whole. benefit."

Boris Sofman, Waymo’s head of freight engineering, said, “Our partnership with Uber Freight helps us expand the scale of Waymo drivers. By combining Waymo solutions with Uber’s freight platform and applying proven market technology, we help operators in the most Dynamically deploying the Waymo Driver where it's valuable."

Companies like Waymo, Tucson Future, Aurora Innovation, and others hope to sell self-driving trucking services to logistics companies and large retailers in the coming years.Under such a business model, customers would buy and own self-driving trucks and pay tech companies a per-mile usage fee.

In late 2020, Uber sold its self-driving unit to Aurora and held a nearly 43% stake in the company.In December, Aurora said it had reached a partnership with Uber Freight.Uber also acquired logistics company Transplace for $2.25 billion last year to further enter the freight market.

Waymo said it plans to launch the first fully driverless trucks "in the next few years," starting on Texas Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston.