Uber has been enjoying dominance in one fast-growing transportation industry segment – ride-sharing – for a while now, and now it seems to be ready to enter the driverless car game, as well, which is widely regarded as the future of the automotive industry. The world’s leading ride-sharing service recently posted new job openings that strongly indicate the company might be interested in getting into the self-driving car manufacturing business, given that most postings express interest in engineers that specialize in different areas that are closely related to the development of autonomous driving technologies.
The company has posted 19 positions on its website, intended for its Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, which was opened recently. Uber is looking for manufacturing engineers, mechanical engineers, automotive safety engineers, communications engineers, offboard infrastructure engineers, software engineers, traffic simulation engineers and user interfaces engineers. This clearly shows that the ride-hailing service is planning to start working on a self-driving car project, since these positions are closely related to “mapping, vehicle safety, and autonomy”, as the company itself says on its website, which is supposed to help Uber in its efforts for bringing “safe, reliable transportation to everyone, everywhere”.
For instance, the mechanical engineers sought by Uber are required to be familiar with modern automotive electronics and diagnostic procedures, whereas those who would like to apply for the traffic simulation engineer positions should be knowledgeable of “road mapping standards” and “real-time modeling”. The fact that manufacturing engineers are also sought, who would be involved in developing “complex software and hardware systems and manage suppliers and vendor interactions”, suggests that Uber is not interested in partnering with automakers and being just an autonomous driving solutions provider, but wants to start building autonomous cars on its own.
On the other hand, though, some industry observers say that Uber might want to develop technology that it would sell to car manufacturers, but if that were the case, the ride-hailing service wouldn’t be looking for engineers that are required to communicate with vendors, or technicians with experience in “building cars at all levels.”
In any case, Uber will surely face a lot of challenges while trying to become a factor in the future driverless car market, be it as a supplier or as a manufacturer. For starters, there is the extremely fierce competition, comprised of the largest car manufacturers in the world, including BMW, Volvo, Toyota, Nissan, and Audi, among others, as well as the two leading tech companies, Google and Apple. All of the aforementioned companies have much more experience as far as building cars is concerned, with the exception of the two tech giants, which for their part, already have a huge presence in cars, providing in-car infotainment solutions for some of the biggest global automakers.
Also, developing and building a car is extremely expensive, requiring investments of billions of dollars to construct factories and buy sophisticated industrial robotics, and although Uber has seen an incredible growth over the past few years, with reports saying that it’s worth well over $40 billion, such a venture might be a bit too costly for the ride-hailing company at the moment. But, a self-driving car project does seem like a logical next step for Uber, given that the future of both personal and commercial transportation is expected to involve some kind of combination of autonomous vehicles and ride-sharing services.