Elon Musk Rejected Uber's Advances To Partner On Tesla Robotaxi

This year could finally be the year that Elon Musk delivers on his promise of building an actual self-driving car. Tesla plans to roll out its long-awaited Robotaxi in June with a dedicated fleet in Austin, Texas. While Musk mentioned during the Cybercab reveal that the in-house fleet will be supplemented by people renting their cars back to the automaker, the autonomous vehicle's future private owners won't be able to on Uber or any other rideshare app.

The rejected tie-up with Tesla wouldn't have been Uber's first partnership with a driverless taxi provider. The popular rideshare app offers Waymo trips in various markets, including Austin. On paper, the collaboration is a win-win for both sides. Uber gets access to a fleet without drivers who will demand a living wage or threaten to unionize, and Google's driverless taxis get immediate access to Uber's massive active user base of over 160 million people.

Despite Uber's experience or position as one of the pre-eminent players in the rideshare market, Elon Musk and Tesla shot down the company's offers to collaborate. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg:

"I've had conversations with him at this point. They want to build it alone, so to some extent in Austin, we and Waymo will be competing with Tesla when they launch. Life is long, but we would love to partner with them."

There are various reasons why Tesla turned down Uber's offer. The obvious one is that Tesla's "Full-Self Driving" software won't be ready in time for the June roll-out date, and Tesla doesn't want to share sensitive information with a third-party company. A more generous assumption is that Tesla believes its brand recognition is strong enough that it doesn't need to bleed revenue to Uber for access to its user base.

Because production on the Cybercab won't begin until 2026, Tesla's driverless rideshare service will rely on Model 3 and Model Y vehicles with updated software. Will this iteration of "Full-Self Driving" actually be autonomous? I have no idea, but there will likely be no regulators left by the summer at the rate that Musk is gutting the federal government.