Uber could licence Waymo self-driving technology following expert review

Uber warns that its future is dependent on the development of self-driving technology - and that it trails rivals in autonomous vehicles

Uber will either have to strike a licensing deal with Google-owned Waymo, or spend time and money further adapting its own autonomous vehicle technology.

That choice comes after an expert review found that the company - which posted a quarterly net loss of $1.16 billion earlier this week - was still reliant on Waymo know-how for elements of its own self-driving vehicle technology.

The disclosure was made in its latest 10Q filing with the SEC.

"In February 2018, we entered into a settlement agreement with Waymo. This agreement resolved Waymo's claims and provided for certain measures, including the joint retention of an independent software expert, to ensure that our autonomous vehicle hardware and software do not misappropriate Waymo intellectual property," it explains.

"The independent software expert recently made adverse findings as to certain functions in our autonomous vehicle software. These findings, which are final, will likely result in a licence fee or in design changes that could require substantial time and resources to implement, and could limit or delay our production of autonomous vehicle technologies."

However, the licensing of another company's autonomous vehicle technology "may not be available on commercially reasonable terms", the Uber document admits.

Furthermore, the indictment in August 2019 of former Uber employee Anthony Levandowski, the co-founder of Ottomotto, could also leave the company wide open to an intellectual property theft compensation claim. Levandowski co-founded Ottomotto after leaving Google-owned Waymo. Shortly after it was acquired, Google successfully sued Uber over intellectual property theft.

Uber acquired Ottomotto because it was trailing rivals in autonomous vehicle technology, former CEO Travis Kalanick admitted.

The quarterly report also warns that the company's future is inextricably tied-up with the development of autonomous vehicle technology - and that the company remains some way behind rivals.

"If we fail to develop and successfully commercialise autonomous vehicle technologies," the report states, "our financial performance and prospects would be adversely impacted".

It continues: "We have invested, and we expect to continue to invest, substantial amounts in autonomous vehicle technologies… While we believe that autonomous vehicles present substantial opportunities, the development of such technology is expensive and time-consuming and may not be successful…

"We expect certain competitors to commercialise autonomous vehicle technologies at scale before we do. Waymo has already introduced a commercialised ride-hailing fleet of autonomous vehicles, and it is possible that other of our competitors could introduce autonomous vehicle offerings earlier than we will."

Should a company like Waymo be able to launch commercial services based on self-driving vehicle technology before Uber, the company would likely be undercut.

The company is competing with a long-tail of rivals to develop viable self-driving vehicle technology, including Waymo, Cruise Automation, Tesla, Apple, Zoox, Aptiv, May Mobility, Pronto.ai, Aurora, and Nuro. The UK's FiveAI is also in the race and currently testing vehicles on the streets of south and south-east London in a limited, 19 kilometre commuter trial.

The news comes as the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report into last year's fatal crash in Arizona pointed the finger of blame at the company's technology for the accident.

The report notes that the automated emergency braking system had been turned off because it was proving to be too unreliable. The system therefore spent precious seconds working out a way to route round the ‘obstruction' its LIDAR sense had picked up, while the vehicle's operator only intervened one second before the accident occurred.