Detroit may be the next stop for Uber’s self-driving cars

By Stephen Edelstein Published September 20, 2016

Hot on the heels of the launch of its self-driving car demo in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Uber has hinted that it may expand to the heart of the U.S. auto industry.

The ridesharing company plans to open a facility in Detroit, Michigan, according to Automotive News (subscription required). Sherif Marakby, Uber vice president of global vehicle programs, reportedly mentioned these plans at a recent event hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in the Motor City. A Detroit outpost could help facilitate partnerships with the automakers and suppliers that are vital to Uber’s autonomous-car efforts.

Recommended Videos

Marakby said Uber plans to work with Tier 1 suppliers, the companies that supply parts directly to automakers, rather than design major hardware components itself. Along with Pittsburgh, Detroit could also become a testing ground for Uber’s autonomous ridesharing service. Michigan is one of a handful of states that has explicitly legalized the testing of self-driving cars on public roads.

Read more: Ford engineers will work at new University of Michigan robotics lab

The home state of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler is attracting more interest from companies developing autonomous cars. Earlier this year, Faraday Future discussed plans to test self-driving cars in the state. Google will open a Michigan outpost as part of its collaboration with Chrysler. And Ford is testing its own autonomous cars near its headquarters in Dearborn, and at the University of Michigan’s “Mcity” facility in Ann Arbor.

The Pittsburgh pilot program, which launched last week, uses modified Ford Fusion sedans built by Uber. Each car travels with a human driver behind the wheel as a backup, and is assigned to randomly pick up passengers who have agreed to participate in the program. Rides are free for the time being.

Uber also has an existing partnership with an automaker, but not one that hails from Detroit. Volvo has an agreement to provide cars as platforms for future Uber autonomous vehicles, and the two companies have pledged a combined $300 million to joint research efforts.

Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

Topics

Cars

Waymo and Toyota explore personally owned self-driving cars

Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

Waymo and Toyota have announced they’re exploring a strategic collaboration—and one of the most exciting possibilities on the table is bringing fully-automated driving technology to personally owned vehicles.
Alphabet-owned Waymo has made its name with its robotaxi service, the only one currently operating in the U.S. Its vehicles, including Jaguars and Hyundai Ioniq 5s, have logged tens of millions of autonomous miles on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
But shifting to personally owned self-driving cars is a much more complex challenge.
While safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. General Motors-backed Cruise robotaxi was forced to suspend operations in 2023 following a fatal collision.
While the partnership with Toyota is still in the early stages, Waymo says it will initially study how to merge its autonomous systems with the Japanese automaker’s consumer vehicle platforms.
In a recent call with analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai signaled that Waymo is seriously considering expanding beyond ride-hailing fleets and into personal ownership. While nothing is confirmed, the partnership with Toyota adds credibility—and manufacturing muscle—to that vision.
Toyota brings decades of safety innovation to the table, including its widely adopted Toyota Safety Sense technology. Through its software division, Woven by Toyota, the company is also pushing into next-generation vehicle platforms. With Waymo, Toyota is now also looking at how automation can evolve beyond assisted driving and into full autonomy for individual drivers.
This move also turns up the heat on Tesla, which has long promised fully self-driving vehicles for consumers. While Tesla continues to refine its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it remains supervised and hasn’t yet delivered on full autonomy. CEO Elon Musk is promising to launch some of its first robotaxis in Austin in June.
When it comes to self-driving cars, Waymo and Tesla are taking very different roads. Tesla aims to deliver affordability and scale with its camera, AI-based software. Waymo, by contrast, uses a more expensive technology relying on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar), that regulators have been quicker to trust.

Cars

Bose wants to dominate car audio, and I heard its next-gen 3D automotive speakers

Bose’s automotive audio business is huge, and it’s set to get even bigger. The company has been making big plays in car audio for some time now. The audio company works with premium brands like Porsche, building high-end speakers that allow drivers to experience high-quality audio on the road, whether they’re carting the family around in an Escalade or weaving around the highway (don’t do that) in a Porsche Macan.

But while it has a solid selection of audio brands under its belt, the world of personal audio is also evolving. Mercedes-Benz showed off its Dolby Atmos system at CES last year, and now, a year later, plenty of other brands are joining the trend. At CES 2025, Bose walked me through its current lineup of automotive audio products, as well as a sneak peek of what’s to come.
Immersive audio
The big trend in all areas of personal audio right now essentially boils down to supporting 3D audio formats like Dolby Atmos. Consumer home theater products are increasingly offering up-firing and side-firing speakers that can bounce audio around the room to simulate height and surround effects, while headphone brands are increasingly developing spatialized audio tech that can convert stereo audio into simulated spatial audio.

Cars

Nvidia will power Toyota’s next-gen self-driving cars

Nvidia has had a huge year, but it’s seemingly about to get even better for the company. At CES 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled not only its next-generation GPUs, but also its plan to expand into the automotive world.

That master plan doesn’t just involve the launch of new automotive-focused GPUs; it also includes expanded shipping of its vehicle-focused software called DriveOS. In fact, the company already has some partners working on next-generation vehicles that use DriveOS software, chief among them being Toyota.