With the bitter legal dispute behind them, Uber and Waymo are now free to form a possible partnership to work together on self-driving cars. According to a new report, Uber has been thinking of ways to get its riders into Waymo’s self-driving cars. Waymo is already partnering with many companies on autonomous cars so there’s nothing really stopping it from joining forces with Uber as well.
Waymo also has a partnership with Uber rival Lyft but a joint initiative with Uber could help Google parent company Alphabet’s autonomous driving division to put more of its self-driving cars on the road.
The long-running dispute between the companies reached its conclusion last month when the trade secret battle between Uber and Waymo was settled for $244.8 million in cash that Uber would pay to the Alphabet company. Uber also promised that it wouldn’t use any of Waymo’s trade secrets in its own technology.
Even if it all makes sense on paper, The Information reports that there’s no indication right now that Waymo is ready to make a deal with Uber on this. Uber executives led by their new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi appear to be mulling this possibility as they’re aware that Waymo’s self-driving technology is more advanced than its own and it would benefit from working with this Alphabet company.