Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently appeared on tech podcast – Hard Fork where he discussed the company’s position in the autonomous vehicle industry. In the podcast, the interviewer asked Khosrowshahi whether Uber considers Tesla a competitor following its “We, Robot” event. To which Khosrowshahi responded “Well, they certainly could be, right? If they develop their own AV vehicle and they decide to go direct only through the Tesla app, they would be a competitor”.
For those unaware, Uber partnered with Waymo in 2023 to bring autonomous ride-hailing services to the Phoenix customers.
‘..open to partnering with Tesla’: Uber CEO
Earlier this month, the Uber CEO told Financial Times that the company is open to partnering with Tesla. Reiterating the same during the podcast, he said “If they decide to work with us, then we would be a partner as well.”
“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 added.
‘…we are betting on Waymo’
During the podcast, Khosrowshahi said that he believed Waymo could best Tesla. “I think Elon eventually will get to a viable scale, but for the next five years, I bet on Waymo, and we are betting on Waymo,” he said.
He also spoke about Waymo’s hardware during the Hard Fork podcast. He said “I think that hardware costs scale down over a period of time. So, sure, Waymo has a hardware problem, but they can solve it.”
