Uber plans to offer self-driving rides in Texas with May Mobility this year

Uber announced that it will offer self-driving rides powered by May Mobility on its app in Texas later this year.

The ride-hailing platform will have both Waymo and May Mobility on its platform in Texas, while Tesla plans to compete with them all in Austin soon.

Tesla is grabbing a lot of headlines with its plan to offer self-driving ride-hailing rides in Austin starting this June, but Waymo has already been providing the same in Austin on Uber’s platform for months and now a new competitor is coming to Texas.

Michidan’s May Mobility has been somewhat under the radar in the autonomous driving space, but it has been around for almost a decade and has received large funding from Toyota, BMW, and several insurance companies.

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Yesterday, they announced a significant step: deploying thousands of vehicles on Uber’s platform within the next few years.

They plan to launch the first vehicles as soon as this year in Arlington, Texas:

Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) and May Mobility, Inc., a leading autonomous vehicle (AV) technology company, today announced a new multi-year strategic partnership. May Mobility aims to deploy thousands of AVs on the Uber platform over the next few years, with an initial launch planned for Arlington, Texas, by the end of 2025. The partnership highlights both companies’ shared ambition to quickly scale AV use in ride-hail, broadening access to AVs across diverse markets and driving greater consumer choice.

May Mobility uses hybrid Toyota Sienna vans outfitted with its own sensor suite, and it has been launching test programs in Arlington since 2021, so it’s very familiar with the locale.

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, commented on the news:

“We are thrilled to be partnering with May Mobility to continue to scale the availability of autonomous vehicles across the United States. At Uber, we’re building the future of transportation, working with the world’s leading autonomous vehicle developers like May Mobility to help commercialize and deploy this technology quickly at scale around the world.”

Edwin Olson, CEO and co-founder of May Mobility, added:

“Launching on the Uber platform is a big signal to the market that May Mobility is ready to quickly expand to major markets as the pre-eminent autonomy-as-a-service provider. Uber and May Mobility will make it possible for more people across the U.S. to enjoy the transformative benefits of autonomous vehicles.”

If this project goes through, it means Uber is going to be offering driverless rides from both Waymo and May Mobility in Texas by the end of the year.