Uber Outsources Its Future to Volkswagen, Prays No One Remembers the Dieselgate Thing

So Uber just announced a long-term partnership with Volkswagen to roll out a fleet of self-driving electric vans in the U.S., and if that sentence didn’t make your eyes roll into the back of your head, then get ready… because there’s more.

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, Uber isn’t building out its own tech with this. That ship sailed when it quietly sold off its Advanced Technologies Group to Aurora in 2020, after lighting billions of dollars on fire trying to play catch-up in a space that still can’t reliably make a car turn left without a mini panic attack. Instead, this is Uber doing what Uber does best: outsourcing the hard stuff while slapping its name on the front of it.

And who are they slapping their name on this time? Volkswagen (a.k.a. The company best known for being a brainchild of Adolf Hitler, lying about emissions, and pumping out reliable family sedans). Their autonomous arm, VW ADMT, will be running the tech. All while MOIA, another VW brand, is supplying the fleet-management backend and the actual vehicles. 

(Source: Investing.com) 

Testing begins later this year in Los Angeles. There will, of course, be human safety operators in the vans at first, because neither company is dumb enough to trust their algorithm to navigate the 405 at 5PM with zero adult supervision. If all goes according to plan, the real launch is scheduled for 2026, with full autonomy supposedly going live in 2027. That is, assuming regulators don’t curb stomp it with the energy of a divorced dad on his fifth Monster energy (a.k.a. My dad). 

So clearly this is a big swinging deal in the land of AV’s. But it’s also a perfect example of Uber’s entire autonomous strategy now: cobble together a Frankenstein fleet of other people’s robots. For instance, they’ve already inked deals with Waymo, WeRide, Avride, and even Nvidia. It’s the aggregator model on steroids. Uber doesn’t care who builds the tech. They just want their app to be the gateway drug for autonomous rides, while someone else eats the cost of actually figuring out how to make these things work without plowing into a tree. 

(Source: Fortune) 

And to be fair, it makes sense. Uber’s never been about owning anything. Not assets, not responsibility, not employees. So why the hell would they start now? Meanwhile, Tesla is somewhere in Austin quietly whispering about its own robotaxi, the “Cybercab,” which Elon claims will start trials this June… perhaps you’ve heard? However, if history’s any guide, it’ll either be late, broken, or a repackaged Model Y with a new name and no steering wheel. 

But alas, Uber’s deal with Volkswagen is the logical next step in its evolution: outsource the tech, own the customer, avoid the liability. And if it all crashes and burns—literally or figuratively—Dara Khosrowshahi can just gaslight investors, blame the third-party, and still end up doing a Ted Talk on the matter. 

(Source: Giphy) 

So, yeah that’s where we are, and right now, investors are eating it up with shares rocketing nearly 5% this week. But even still, while autonomous vehicles may be the future… they’re also a glorified PR stunt with a bigly seven-figure burn rate. Meaning, even though Uber is still trying to convince Wall Street it still has a roadmap to make this a reality—only time will tell if that roadmap actually leads straight off a cliff. 

In the meantime, keep an eye on Uber and Volkswagen as this partnership starts moving forward and place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends… 

P.S. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you liked getting rekt. Let’s face it, retail investors get the short end of the stick all day everyday. It’s the smart money’s world, and we are just living in it–only useful when it comes to liquidity purposes in the market. Meaning, if you’re as pissed off as I was when I found out Milli Vanilli was lip syncing the whole time, then it’s time to go from investing blind, to investing smart. Luckily for you, the key is right here as a Stocks.News premium member. Click here to see exactly how our premium members are printing while others quake in the face of today’s market chaos. 

Stocks.News holds positions in Uber and Tesla as mentioned in the article.