Uber's strategy shift

Research firm Gartner has moved autonomous drive technology into the "trough of disillusionment" portion of its "hype cycle" tracker, a signal that enthusiasm for self-driving vehicles may be waning.

Startups and massive tech and auto companies are reassessing their assumptions about autonomous vehicles. Until recently, the perception has been that self-driving cars would speed the adoption and the underlying economics of ride-hailing. But as technological development of autonomous cars has slowed and human-driven ride-hailing operations such as Uber and Lyft have remained unprofitable, the vision of ubiquitous robotaxis is getting fresh scrutiny.

Though autonomous on-demand mobility is still a massive opportunity, the threat of it suddenly disrupting transportation as we know it is fading into the deep future.

Nowhere is this more evident than at Uber. Under founder Travis Kalanick, Uber was guided by a vision of rapid expansion of ride-hailing followed by a wholesale conversion to self-driving rides. This potent vision made Uber one of the world's most valuable private companies, and fueled the influx of venture capital dollars that has been subsidizing its existing business and the development of autonomous vehicles.

Now, under new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber seems to be pivoting to a different vision of its opportunity: less of an end-to-end vehicle-based mobility service and more of a multimodal platform.

Not only has Uber expanded its platform to include bicycles, scooters and public transit, it has said that it would allow third-party autonomous vehicles on its platform, and there are even rumors that it could sell its in-house autonomous drive technology development team. Moving toward an end state that more closely reflects Amazon's online marketplace than an autonomous cab service may in part reflect the challenges of ride-hailing economics and autonomous drive technology development.

It also suggests a deeper revelation: New technologies on their own don't always offer enough unique advantages to single-handedly shift consumption patterns.

The rise of the smartphone has created what appears to be an unrealistic mental model for mobility. The public keeps expecting new technologies with specific but limited advantages, such as electric and autonomous cars or ride-hailing, to transform mobility consumption as rapidly and totally as the iPhone has changed communication and computing, but none of them offers the same intrinsic advantage over the incumbent. What's exciting about Uber's move toward a multimodal platform strategy is that it breaks that assumption, and works from the assumption that the way to change consumption patterns is simply to offer choice.

Mobility in this country has been monopolized by the car for a century, and if no one technology can surpass it in every meaningful way then the only way to break that monopoly is to foster conscious consumption of mobility. What a multimodal app allows is for consumers to find the right mode for any given trip. By connecting the type of mobility they need in a given moment with the mode of mobility most appropriate to it, Uber can begin fostering a new and more conscious approach to mobility consumption.

Even with this kind of choice, changing consumption patterns will take time. Technology always moves faster than our ability to understand and optimize it. But once an "Amazon of mobility" emerges, which appears to be the model Uber is pursuing, that change can begin. In the long run, this shift will help every form of new mobility technology. But for now, it means Uber needs to get past its obsession with autonomous cars as the solution to all our mobility challenges.

— Edward Niedermeyer

Uber's multimillion dollar settlement The ride-hailing giant filed paperwork outlining a potential settlement in a class-action discrimination lawsuit. Under the proposed settlement, Uber would pay 56 current and former employees $1.9 million, or about $33,900 each, and 480 workers $5.1 million. The suit alleged that Uber's compensation and bonus regime systematically discriminated against women and people of color.

Gad-Zoox! Tim Kentley-Klay, CEO of Zoox, a self-driving car startup, has been fired. The move appears to have come as a shock to Kentley-Klay, who has spent the past day tweeting out condolences from former employees. In a tweet, the ousted executive wrote that "today was Silicon Valley up to its worst tricks. ... Rather than working through the issues in an epic startup for the win, the board chose a path of fear, optimizing for a little money in hand at the expense of profound progress."

VW rebuffed Bloomberg reports that Volkswagen's attempted acquisition of Aurora Innovation, a self-driving software startup, was rebuffed by the company, whose leaders want to continue working with several carmakers.

Maiden voyages

Hyundai Motor Co. ran the first highway test of its autonomous long-hauler in South Korea.

Scottsdale, Ariz., will be the first city to receive self-driving grocery delivery startup Nuro's service.

Arlington, Texas, is the second city to run Drive.AI's self-driving shuttle service.

Lyft and Aptiv have ferried more than 5,000 rides in Las Vegas.

All-electric ships may be coming soon.

New tech

This Apple patent sketches out a countdown clock for self-driving car maneuvers.

Amazon patents driverless car technology to maneuver in traffic. (paywall)

Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab is integrating medical services into its transportation app.

Here's a new cybersecurity certification process for Internet of Things devices.

Deals

Getaround raises $300 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.

Intel acquires Vertex.AI, a startup focused on creating production-ready, AI-capable chipsets.

Study: Ride-hailing is more expensive than car ownership, but some carmakers are worried about when that will no longer be the case.

Forget cars. It's pedestrians that are a problem for the self-driving revolution.

This Department of Defense unit acts more like a Silicon Valley startup.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk may be done with rappers but is still tweeting some moody poetry.