Uber is Negotiating to sell its Autonomous Cars Division to Competitor Aurora
San Francisco, California-based “Uber Technologies Inc.” that offers vehicles for hire, food delivery, package delivery through collaboration with Lime, electric bicycle and motorized scooter rental is in talks to sell its autonomous vehicle unit to start-up competitor Aurora Innovation, which was recently valued at 7.25 billion dollars.
According to a report in TechCrunch, the sale of Uber Advanced Technologies Group (Uber ATG) is set to mark the end of a bumpy road as the company has experienced a number of difficulties.
Meanwhile, in Uber’s most recent earnings report, the “ATG and other technologies” segment had a revenue of 25 million dollars in the third quarter and the segment saw a net loss of 303 million dollars for the nine months ended September 30.
Aurora was established in 2017 by Chris Urmson, the former Chief Engineer of Google’s autonomous driving project and they were primarily interested in developing technologies for autonomous trucks. Moreover, the startup’s most recent valuation was about 2.5 billion and Aurora said in July it was expanding its testing of autonomous vehicles in Texas.
Besides, Uber refused to comment on Saturday. A spokesperson told the Verge in an email that “we don’t comment on rumors or speculations.”
Furthermore, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) Director emailed Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, warning of gaps in the company’s self-management efforts, saying that ATG ‘has simply not managed to evolve and make significant progress in such a long time that something has to be said before a disaster happens to us.’
Lastly, with only 765.6 million dollars raised, however, Aurora is considerably smaller than ATG and is likely to attract external investment or allow Uber to retain equity for the acquisition.
