Uber Chases Google in self-driving cars with Carnegie Mellon deal | WSJ

What might have been a budding partnership suddenly appeared to boil over into a pitched rivalry on Monday. Besides Uber’s disclosure that it will work on its own self-driving car technology, a Bloomberg Business report citing a source close to Uber’s board said Google is prepping its own car-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its self-driving car project. The report said the Uber board had seen screenshots of what appears to be a ride-sharing app being used by Google employees and that the Uber board is considering whether to ask Drummond to leave the board.

But a person familiar with the matter said news that Google is developing an app to rival Uber has been blown out of proportion. The person said a Google engineer has been testing an internal app that helps Google employees carpool to work, and the app isn’t associated with the company’s driverless cars program.

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Hallie Siegel robotics editor-at-large

Hallie Siegel robotics editor-at-large