Uber Technologies has signed a deal with automaker Daimler to deploy self-driving cars in its ride-hailing network. They announced this partnership with Germany’s Daimler, the manufacturer of luxury Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks on Tuesday. As Daimler planned to incorporate its own self-driving Mercedes Benz into Uber fleet network, this deal has evolved.
The key business idea behind the use of developing autonomous technology is to reduce the need for hiring human drivers. The comment by CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick in a blog post reads “Auto manufacturers like Daimler are crucial to our strategy because Uber has no experience making cars and in fact, making cars is really hard.”
Many Silicon Valley firms and traditional vehicle manufacturers are trying hard to meet the automotive industry standards, whereas these deals have become common between automakers and startups.
Uber has made the self-driving car pilots available to the riders in Pennsylvania and Arizona. A$300 million deal is signed between two companies, Uber and Volvo, to develop autonomous cars. The newest car in this category is Volvo.
However unlike the Volvo deal, Uber has informed that they will not manage or own any Daimler cars, and the cars used for this purpose will not be used in any research and development of the self-driving. An Uber spokesman refused to discuss financial terms of the agreement.
