Skip to main content

Uber plans to splash out $500 million on mapping the world

As Uber itself notes, accurate maps are at the very heart of its service and form the backbone of its burgeoning business.

With this in mind, the company is planning to invest a hefty half a billion dollars in boosting its mapping technology and data, enabling it to rely less heavily on Google Maps and helping it toward its lofty goal of a ridesharing service using driverless vehicles.

Recommended Videos

The intention to double down on its investment in mapping was revealed by Uber last week, while the $500 million figure was disclosed over the weekend to the Financial Times by an unnamed source familiar with the company’s plans.

Brian McClendon, Uber’s mapping expert who also once led the Google Maps team, said in a recent blog post that “existing maps are a good starting point” but fail to provide the detailed information necessary for building the most effective and efficient ridesharing service possible.

He explained, “There are other things we need to know a lot more about, like traffic patterns and precise pickup and drop-off locations. Moreover, we need to be able to provide a seamless experience in parts of the world where there aren’t detailed maps – or street signs.”

The San Francisco-based company already has mapping vehicles on the roads in the U.S. and Mexico, but this latest investment looks set to take the technology across the world, similar to how Google’s Street View cars have been traversing the globe for the last 10 years.

Uber’s other efforts to bolster its maps led to a recent deal with DigitalGlobe, a provider of high-res satellite imagery, “to help identify and improve pick-up and drop-off locations.” It also acquired mapping firm deCarta last year, as well as some of the tech – and team members – behind Microsoft’s Bing Maps.

McClendon said mapping innovation will only accelerate in the coming years, “especially with technologies like self-driving cars.”

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick first revealed the company’s plans to develop self-driving technology in 2014. A short while later it partnered with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to open the Uber Advanced Technologies Center aimed at taking the plan forward, and then in August last year it linked up with the University of Arizona to work on optics technology for improving its self-driving car’s mapping system and safety features.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
It looks like the end of the road for Cruise robotaxis
A Cruise autonomous car.

Autonomous-driving operations at Cruise look certain to end after its main backer, General Motors (GM), said it will stop funding the initiative.

GM, which has owned about 90% of Cruise since 2016, announced the decision in a statement shared on Tuesday. It follows a challenging period for Cruise after one of its autonomous cars ran over a woman after she was knocked into its path by a human-driven car in San Francisco in October 2023. The incident led to California regulators suspending Cruise's license to test its driverless cars on the state's streets, a decision that prompted Cruise to pause operations in other locations where it operated. It restarted low-level testing in Arizona in May 2024.

Read more
Waymo’s robotaxis are rolling into another U.S. city
A Waymo driverless car.

Waymo has been testing its driverless cars in Miami intermittently for the last five years, but now it’s making serious moves to launch a robotaxi service there.

The Alphabet-owned company revealed on Thursday that it’ll start testing its Jaguar I-PACE autonomous cars on the streets of the city early next year, with the aim of launching a robotaxi service for residents and visitors via the Waymo One app in 2026.

Read more
Waymo, Nexar present AI-based study to protect ‘vulnerable’ road users
waymo data vulnerable road users ml still  1 ea18c3

Robotaxi operator Waymo says its partnership with Nexar, a machine-learning tech firm dedicated to improving road safety, has yielded the largest dataset of its kind in the U.S., which will help inform the driving of its own automated vehicles.

As part of its latest research with Nexar, Waymo has reconstructed hundreds of crashes involving what it calls ‘vulnerable road users’ (VRUs), such as pedestrians walking through crosswalks, biyclists in city streets, or high-speed motorcycle riders on highways.

Read more