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Uber announces sale of self-driving unit to Aurora for $10 billion

Uber announces sale of self-driving unit to Aurora for $10 billion
Uber announces sale of self-driving unit to Aurora for $10 billion
  • The move would allow Uber to take a valuable stake in Aurora.
  • Claims have been made that once Aurora releases its autonomous vehicles, they will launch those on Uber’s network.

With self-driving cars being considered to be the future of the thriving automotive industry, various companies and new entrants in the market have been rigorously working towards setting a benchmark in the overall business space via being engrossed in product diversification, M&As, and collaborations. In one such instance, Uber- one of the largest ride-hailing networks worldwide- recently announced selling its self-driving car division to Aurora startup under a decent deal of USD 10 billion.

Speculations have it that in exchange of investing about USD 400 million in Aurora, Uber would get a 26% ownership stake in the company. The count would further increase to 40% when counting the stakes held by investors and employees of Uber’s self-driving division.

According to official sources, Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi and a company representative would join Aurora’s board to carry out the operations. While on the other, by introducing Uber’s autonomous driving unit in its portfolio, Aurora is anticipated to gain hundreds of engineers along with access to one of the world’s largest ride-hailing networks. Moreover, for Uber, the deal would give it a substantial share in one of Silicon Valley’s most capable self-driving startup.

Commenting on this novel initiative, Chris Urmson, the CEO of Aurora Innovation reportedly cited that the deal is touted to work well for both the companies and that they are excited to onboard the team of Uber, alongside Dara.

Announcing the news in a joint statement, both Uber and Aurora announced that the group would focus on autonomous trucking first and later move to more complex light weight passenger vehicles . As per reliable reports, the deal is expected to close during Q1 2021 and is estimated to guarantee that when Aurora releases its autonomous driving vehicles, they would do it on Uber’s network.

Source Credit: https://fortune.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-vehicle-unit-to-aurora/

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Omkar Patwardhan

Omkar Patwardhan started his professional career in the hospitality industry. Having nurtured a deep-sated passion for words however, he found his way into content writing and now pens down articles for theresearchprocess.com and a few other websites, spanning the sectors of business, finance, and technology./