Deal marks major expansion in Türkiye’s delivery market as Uber plans local integration with global Eats platform

Uber is bringing more robotaxis onto its platform through multiple announcements in the last week—the latest coming yesterday is a collaboration with autonomous vehicle (AV) company Pony.ai—as CEO Dara Khoshrowshahi said AVs are critical for the company's growth."We are confident that AV technology is the single greatest opportunity ahead for Uber. And we are laser-focused on bringing more partners and more AVs, in more places, onto the Uber platform," he wrote in the company's Q1 2025 earnings statement. The partnership with China-based Pony.ai is expected to launch in the Middle East later this year, with additional international markets to be added down the road, the companies said.Uber app users will have the chance to have a trip fulfilled by a Pony.ai autonomous vehicle once they are available on the platform. The vehicles will have a safety operator on board during the pilot phase.“At Pony.ai, our vision is to develop autonomous driving technology that is not only safe and reliable but also scalable, transforming daily transportation,” said James Peng, co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai. “Partnering with Uber accelerates our shared mission to make autonomous mobility a real, everyday experience for more consumers around the world. By combining our proven autonomous systems with Uber’s unparalleled ride-hailing platform, we’re poised to set a new standard for the commercialization of driverless services, starting in the Middle East before expanding to new markets.”

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi predicted that robot drivers will replace human drivers at scale in 15 to 20 years in an autonomous future, as long as several factors fall into place in the meantime. “If you fast-forward 15, 20 years, I think eventually the cars are going to be autonomous…,” Khosrowshahi said during a session [] The post Uber CEO Says Robots Could Replace Human Drivers by 2040 appeared first on PYMNTS.com.