Is the Uber-Waymo Partnership Coming to an End?

The Uber-Waymo partnership has shifted from strategic alliance to transactional relationship. And transactional relationships have shorter expiration dates.

Waymo on Uber, where riders can only book a Waymo through the Uber app, exists in exactly two cities: Austin and Atlanta. Since those launches, Waymo has announced close to a dozen new markets. None with Uber. Nashville went to Lyft.

In this episode, Daniel Abreu Marques sits down with Harry Campbell, founder of The Driverless Digest and The Rideshare Guy, to unpack what's actually happening between Uber, Waymo, and Lyft. Harry has spent the last decade covering ride share from the driver's seat up and is now one of the sharpest analysts in the autonomy space.

Topics covered:

• Why Waymo on Uber likely won't expand beyond Austin and Atlanta
• How Waymo is eating into market share in San Francisco
• At what time the first cracks appeared in the relationship
• The signals hinting to an divorce of Uber and Waymo
• Why the Nashville Waymo-Lyft deal is more strategic than the headlines suggest
• Uber's pivot from asset-light to buying AV vehicles from Lucid and others
• Lyft's quiet repositioning via FlexDrive and what it actually delivers
• Uber's AV Policy White Paper
• What a clean Uber-Waymo breakup would look like, and the metrics to watch

Links to Harry's channels:

The Driverless Digest

The Rideshare Guy

Timestamps:

00:00 - Overview of Uber and Waymo’s current relationships and market strategy

02:48 - Evidence of the partnership shifting from alliance to transactional dynamics

06:42 - Key inflection points hinting at the partnership’s decline

09:06 - The importance of AVs in Uber’s investor relations and valuation

10:13 - Waymo’s market share gains in major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles

12:35 - How Waymo is cannibalizing Uber and Lyft’s market share

14:52 - The strategic logic behind city-by-city expansion without Uber involvement

17:30 - Uber and Waymo’s competing interests in different markets

19:09 - Nashville’s hybrid model of AV booking through both apps

21:35 - The potential for Waymo to aggregate Uber and Lyft drivers on its platform

22:03 - Policy debates: New York City’s restrictive regulations and industry impact

24:47 - The effect of AVs on driver earnings and the future role of human drivers

27:41 - Uber’s white paper on policy challenges and their stance on AV deployment

30:50 - Uber’s vehicle ownership and investment patterns in AV companies

35:01 - The implications of Uber’s plan to buy vehicles directly from OEMs

39:50 - Possible triggers for a clean breakup between Uber and Waymo by market signals or events

42:34 - The 2031 industry landscape: scales, players, and technological trends