- Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wants to partner with Tesla rather than compete with its autonomous taxi service, the Cybercab. He says the AV market could be "an enormous, enormous long-term opportunity" for Uber.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says he wants to work with Tesla CEO Elon Musk rather than compete with the EV company as it prepares to launch its robo-taxi service.
In an interview with analyst Ben Thompson for the Stratechery newsletter, Khosrowshahi said, "No one wants to compete against Tesla or Elon, if you can help it. Their capabilities are pretty extraordinary."
Tesla's Cybercab, or robo-taxi, was announced last October and is due to hit the roads in Texas this June as part of a trial rollout. The autonomous taxi service could directly compete with Uber's AV services it offers through partners like Waymo and Wayve.
Khosrowshahi told Thompson the AV market could represent a trillion-dollar-plus opportunity, and Uber views it as "an enormous, enormous long-term opportunity."
The Uber boss has previously said he'd like to partner with Tesla to offer the Cybercab via its services, but so far, this partnership hasn't emerged.
Fleets of autonomous vehicles have the potential to significantly lower costs for ride-hailing companies and their customers—but Tesla could prove to be a major competitor in the AV space if the company decides to go it alone.
However, Khosrowshahi is still optimistic that Tesla will need an ally to drive customer acquisition.
"I think the same economic laws apply to them. Ultimately, if Tesla puts their cars on our network, we already have 150,000 drivers who are driving Teslas, and if they get FSD, they’d love to plug it into Uber as well," he told Thompson.
"Then, that Tesla that is both on Uber, and by the way, they could be both on Uber and the network, that is going to create much, much more revenue. Ultimately, that’ll increase the value of the Tesla so that the residual value of that car improves," he continued.
Khosrowshahi suggested that Tesla and Uber could have a similar relationship to McDonald's and Uber Eats.
"McDonald’s has its own app, and has an incredible brand, has a lot of capital, has terrific reach. They still work with Uber Eats and DoorDash, because they want to drive utilization of the box called the restaurant, that same economic value is going to be true going forward," he said.
"Ultimately, we’re hoping that my charm and the economic argument gets Tesla to work with us as well. If they want a direct channel, no problem," Khosrowshahi added.
Uber 'well-positioned' in the AV market
Uber already has partnerships with AV startups, including Wayve, Cruise, and Waymo.
GM's autonomous vehicle company Cruise will be shut down by the first half of next year, but Waymo is still expanding through U.S. cities, partly through its partnership with the Uber app. Customers in Austin and Atlanta are expected to get access to self-driving cabs via Waymo this year.
Uber has pulled back on efforts to develop its autonomous-driving tech, notably selling its Advanced Technologies Group to Aurora in 2020, and has shifted focus to partnerships with autonomous vehicle startups instead. The company said in its latest earnings call that it was investing in supply amid the increasingly competitive AV market and was “very well-positioned” in the market.
It's not the first time Khosrowshahi has expressed enthusiasm for partnering with Tesla on autonomous vehicles. In October he told the Financial Times that Uber would "love" to have Tesla's Cybercab on its platform.
"We'd love to have it on the platform, but if not, I don't think this is going to be a winner-take-all marketplace. We believe in the spirit of partnership; we'll see what Tesla does," he told the outlet.
Representatives for Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
