Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Hopes To Incorporate Tesla Robotaxis On Its Platform: 'It's A Great Car…'

Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) CEO Dara Khosrowshahi hopes to incorporate Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) Robotaxis on the ride-hailing platform one day.

Partnerships With Multiple Companies

In an appearance on the Moonshot Podcast on Wednesday, Khosrowshahi outlined that Uber was already in partnerships with 20 different companies in the autonomous driving space, including Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), WeRide Inc. (NASDAQ:WRD), Pony AI Inc. (NASDAQ:PONY) and more.

“Just like we want every terrific licensed human driver on the platform, we’re going to want every terrific licensed robot driver on the platform as well,” he said during his appearance, adding that Uber would offer Robotaxis in over 15 different cities via its partnerships.

The CEO also expressed bullish sentiments regarding Uber’s Robotaxi goal. “We think that we will facilitate more autonomous and Robotaxi rides than anyone else in the world,” by 2029, he said.

Uber and WeRide recently launched driverless Robotaxis in Dubai. Uber is also gearing up to launch Baidu Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:BIDU) Apollo Go Robotaxis in Dubai. Apollo Go is also launching in London in a partnership with Uber, as well as rival Lyft Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT).

Elon Musk And Tesla’s Vertical Approach

When asked whether he thinks Uber would offer Tesla Robotaxis on its platform, Khosrowshahi expressed optimism. He also shared that Elon Musk‘s approach to Robotaxis was vertical. “When the day comes when those Teslas are safe with a camera-only approach, we’d love to have those Teslas on our platform as well,” Khosrowshahi said.

He added that there were many Tesla vehicles already on the Uber platform and that some drivers used FSD when driving for Uber. “It’s a great car. It’s a safe car,” Khosrowshahi said, adding that Uber would “love to work with” Tesla, but it acknowledged that it remained to be decided.

It’s worth noting that Khosrowshahi had earlier expressed doubts about Tesla’s camera-only approach to self-driving, adding that a combination of LiDAR and camera-based technology was the right solution to autonomous vehicles.

Uber also signed a deal with Tesla rival Rivian Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ:RIVN), committing over $1.25 billion in investment through 2031, aiming to deploy thousands of Rivian R2 Robotaxis by that year.

Tesla’s FSD Criticism

Tesla’s FSD system has been under criticism from various experts, with investor Gary Black of The Future Fund LLC saying that the company’s stock has underperformed the NDX because Tesla has failed to live up to the unsupervised FSD hype.

“Despite all the assertions that Teslas drive autonomously today without supervision, TSLA still has only 9 robotaxis in operation without safety monitor,” he said. The system has also received flak from investor Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki, who lamented that it was still at a Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) level 2 Autonomous Driving.

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