Dara Khosrowshahi says automated vehicles could handle over 50% of Uber trips in 15–20 years, marking a key strategic shift from driver-based rides. He frames this projection as contingent on significant advances in vehicle autonomy and operational scaling on Uber’s core platform.

Khosrowshahi highlights three pillars for success: regulatory approval at federal and state levels, development of robust sensor stacks and AI models, and physical infrastructure investments such as charging stations and maintenance hubs. He warns that without synchronized progress across these areas, robotaxi deployment will lag.

The company created Uber Autonomous Solutions to streamline partnerships with vehicle manufacturers, technology firms and city planners. This unit’s mandate includes pilot programs in target cities, data integration from test fleets and coordination with local regulators to accelerate commercial rollouts.

Uber faces direct competition from Waymo’s footage-driven robotaxis, Tesla’s camera-centric Full Self-Driving tests and Zoox’s purpose-built vehicles. Each rival emphasizes different technical approaches, forcing Uber to tailor its autonomous strategy to outperform on cost, safety and scalability metrics.