Uber partners with GM’s Cruise to offer self-driving car rides

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Cruise’s self-driving vehicles will soon be available on ride-hailing app Uber, as the General Motors-owned group tries to reverse its fortunes after a series of setbacks.

Uber said on Thursday it had signed a “multiyear strategic partnership” with Cruise to make the company’s autonomous cars available to riders on the Uber platform from next year in an undisclosed city.

Cruise has been beset by challenges since a high-profile crash last year in San Francisco involving one of its cars, in which a pedestrian was seriously injured. That triggered a series of investigations into its technology. Its co-founder and former chief executive Kyle Vogt subsequently resigned, and it paused all self-driving operations.

The deal mirrors Uber’s partnership with self-driving group Waymo in the city of Phoenix, and is part of its push to become the go-to platform for consumers looking to ride in autonomous vehicles.

Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in August that the company was “uniquely positioned to offer tremendous value for AV players looking to deploy their technology at scale”. In the latest quarter, the number of autonomous trips on Uber grew by six times year over year, via the company’s 10 partnerships that include Waymo.

Uber could “play an important role in helping to safely and reliably introduce autonomous technology to consumers and cities around the world”, Khosrowshahi added in a statement on Thursday.

Partnerships with companies such as Uber allow self-driving car companies to reach new riders. The rides may also prove more profitable for Uber since there is no human driver to pay.

Cruise and Uber have not disclosed the terms of the deal or how the passenger’s fare would be split between the companies. The deal will make an undisclosed number of Cruise’s Chevrolet Bolt-based autonomous vehicles available on the platform.

After taking all their autonomous vehicles off the roads following the crash last year, Cruise has resumed testing the cars with human drivers in the cities of Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. It has not yet announced where it intends to relaunch autonomous driving operations first.

Cruise chief executive Marc Whitten, a tech industry veteran who took over the top role last month, said Cruise was “excited” about the deal with Uber aimed at “unlocking a new era of urban mobility”.

This week the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had closed one investigation into Cruise after the company said it would recall more than 1,000 of its vehicles and implement a software update to correct an error that meant “unexpected braking manoeuvres” could occur.

Cruise said it was “committed to building trust and increasing transparency with respect to autonomous vehicle technology, and look forward to our continued work with NHTSA toward that end”.

The company is still facing investigations by other authorities including the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.

Uber said its autonomous vehicle partners were “reviewed against our industry-leading autonomous safety guidelines, which they must meet before accessing our platform”.