Waymo will connect its autonomous trucking operation to Uber Freight, the logistics business owned by the ride-hailing firm, a few months after the companies ended a bitter legal fight over self-driving technology.
The companies announced Tuesday a “deep, long-term partnership.” In the deal, carriers that use self-driving tech from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo will be able to join the network from Uber Freight, which serves as a broker among truckers and shipping firms. The companies said in a statement that they will also work on a service to provide “easy and fast transfers between” autonomous systems and human drivers.
Uber Technologies Inc. once worked on self-driving trucks and cars, but has since sold off that unit in a broader move to shed assets and cut costs. Uber Freight, launched in 2017, pairs trucking companies with those seeking to transport loads. The business is a standalone subsidiary of Uber, which in 2020 sold a stake in the unit. At the time, Uber Freight was valued around $4 billion, Bloomberg News reported. Last year, Uber Freight acquired Transplace, a logistics company owned by TPG Capital, for $2.25 billion.
One reason Uber shuttered its autonomous efforts was a massive lawsuit from Waymo, which accused Uber and an engineer it had hired of stealing self-driving technology. Uber agreed to pay Waymo $245 million in stock and settled the full litigation in February.