Uber shifts gear with $10bn plan for self-driving cars

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Uber plans to spend $10bn on autonomous vehicles as it moves away from its gig economy business model to focus on robotaxis. Roughly $7.5bn of this sum will be spent on acquiring thousands of self-driving cars. The company also plans to take equity stakes in car makers if their tech hits certain milestones over the next few years. This marks a change in direction for Uber, which is currently an “asset-light” business. Even though it already offers driverless rides in Phoenix, Atlanta and Austin, it doesn’t own most of the cars in its network. There are plans to trial autonomous vehicles in London this spring. By 2028, Uber wants to roll them out to 28 cities around the world through a partnership with Nvidia.