June 25 - Uber Technologies (UBER, Financial) gained about 7% Tuesday after expanding its autonomous vehicle partnership with Waymo to a wider area in Atlanta.
The new launch covers approximately 65 square miles of the city, excluding highways and airport routes. Riders can now hail Waymo's fully driverless vehicles directly through the Uber and Uber Eats apps.
The collaboration builds on a pilot program that began in Phoenix, where both ride-hailing and delivery services used Waymo's robotaxis. The Atlanta expansion marks another step forward in Uber's efforts to scale autonomous mobility.
The timing comes as Tesla (TSLA, Financial) continues limited testing of its own robotaxi service in Austin. While early issues persist for competitors, Uber's multi-partner approach may offer more flexibility.
The action of the Uber stock denotes the investor optimism concerning the increasing exposure of the company to autonomous technology. Nonetheless, adoption can be slow and yet, rider trust, local regulation, and maturity of the technology can determine the pace at which it rolls out.
Uber is in a good place to go autonomous with Waymo, but the projection on whether it becomes a good long-term investment depends on whether scaling difficulties, local regulations, and the rate at which consumers could develop trust in fully driverless transport will be resolved.
