Overview

• Uber has partnered with Google's Waymo, offering customers within Waymo’s Phoenix service area a chance to ride in a driverless Waymo vehicle instead of a human-driven Uber car.
• The 225 square-mile service area includes downtown Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa, and Chandler, as well as the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.
• When requesting a ride using the Uber app, customers may be notified that a Waymo vehicle has been chosen, and they can choose to accept or decline this option.
• The partnership was announced despite a previous lawsuit between the two companies over trade secrets, revealing a strategic shift for Uber's autonomous vehicle approach.
• As this collaboration suggests that autonomous and human-driven rides will be priced the same, some speculate that it may lead to a shift in societal wealth distribution by reducing labor costs, making ride-sharing more affordable while potentially limiting income opportunities for drivers.