Waymo to end partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta in 2028 — InsideEVs

Waymo will end its partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta, United States, starting in January 2028. After that, passengers in these cities will order Waymo self-driving taxis through the company’s own app, InsideEVs reports.

Transition to its own app

Currently, Waymo’s self-driving vehicles in Austin and Atlanta can be accessed through the Uber app as part of the partnership between the two companies. Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told Bloomberg that the service aims to provide customers with a more predictable ride-booking experience.

According to her, a user can enable the autonomous rides option in the Uber app, but this does not guarantee that a self-driving vehicle will arrive: availability depends on whether a Waymo vehicle is nearby. At an early stage, the partnership with Uber helped Waymo scale its service and introduce passengers to autonomous ride technology.

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Uber will become a competitor in two cities

Uber proposed creating a separate robotaxi booking option in its service to make it easier to match users with Waymo vehicles. However, according to the publication, the company declined this proposal.

Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet and currently provides more than 500,000 paid self-driving rides each week. The service operates in 15 U.S. cities and plans to expand to more than a dozen additional cities in the coming months. At the same time, in Nashville, Waymo continues its non-exclusive partnership with Lyft while also serving passengers through its own app.