Is the Arrival/Uber Car Collaboration the End of the Line for the Autonomous Hype Train?
By Edward A. Sanchez – May 5, 2021
This week, electric vehicle startup Arrival announced its collaboration with ride hailing giant Uber on the collaboration of the two companies in the development of a purpose-built electric vehicle specifically designed around the needs and use case of ride hailing. The vehicle is targeted to enter production in continental Europe and the UK in 2023. Uber has pledged to go 100% electric globally by 2030. In the release, the word “drivers” was used 14 times. The term “autonomous” was used zero times.
You may remember that Uber recently sold its autonomous vehicle research division to Aurora in December 2020. Likewise, ride-hailing rival Lyft just last month announced the sale of its self-driving Level 5 division to Toyota’s Woven Planet. The fact that two of the largest ride-hailing companies in the world, and certainly North America, have largely exited the autonomous space is a far cry from 2016-’18, when autonomous technology cheerleaders were furiously hyping the imminence of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and claiming the autonomous revolution was just around the corner.
Arrival’s ride-hailing vehicle is scheduled to hit European and British roads in 2023.
To be clear, I don’t believe AVs are going away entirely or that autonomous R&D is disappearing. It’s just that the development focus has shifted. Most of the effort and announcements seem to be targeted at the urban delivery markets (whether parcels or food), advanced ADAS applications for highway cruising (essentially advanced cruise control), and some autonomous urban transport pods.
The utopia of a high-speed, fully networked, no-pedals, no-wheel, Jetsons-like future is quite a ways off. I would say at least a decade or more. Granted, the sophistication of machine learning and artificial intelligence technology is increasing rapidly, and it’s possible we could see consumer-facing AVs come sooner than anticipated, especially if Apple launches its long-anticipated car, which many believe will have a high degree of focus on autonomy on some level.
An Arrival EV designed for ride sharing could offer a different style of interior than we’re used to.
In time, likely in the next 15-20 years, I’m sure autonomous vehicles, whether fleet/commercial, or consumer, will likely be commonplace. However, the difference between AVs and other disruptive consumer technologies is their sheer physicality. Sure, if your smartphone or Wi-Fi router suddenly runs out of charge or dies, it’s inconvenient and disruptive to your daily routine. If a two-ton vehicle going 70 mph goes “off-the-rails,” so to speak, you’re talking about a much more dangerous and life-changing proposition.
I have long posited that Uber, Lyft, and any other ride-hailing platform’s long-term (decades) business plan is removing human drivers from the scenario entirely. Humans are unpredictable, expensive, prone to disruption over wage or benefit disagreements, etc. Having a fully autonomous fleet would remove that irksome variable from the equation. But for the near-term, it seems like Uber is acknowledging human drivers are going to be part of its business for the foreseeable future.
(Images courtesy Arrival)
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