Less than five years ago, I asked the editor of a top automotive website what he thought of Tesla's chances of successfully building and selling an all-electric sedan. He said in no uncertain terms that it would never happen, echoing the thoughts of most of the auto intelligentsia at the time. It was also the same year that Google revealed it was developing self-driving cars, and that the ride-hailing app Uber launched.

What a difference half a decade makes. The success of the Tesla Model S proved the editor and many others in the auto industry wrong. And no one could have guessed that Google would be building self-driving cars sans a steering wheel or gas and brake pedals. Or that the phenomenal success of Uber would threaten the entrenched taxi industry in many cities—and that the app developer could be poised to become a producer of robo-taxis.

While Uber hasn't made its full autonomous-car intentions known, the red-hot ride-hailing service's co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick has stated that eliminating human drivers —and their associated costs to the bottom line—is a long-term goal of the company. An indication that Uber may be headed down that path is a recent partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a pioneer in autonomous-vehicle technology, to create the Uber Advanced Technologies Center (ATC) near the CMU campus in Pittsburgh. In a February blog post announcing the collaboration, Uber said that it would be working with CMU "to do research and development, primarily in the areas of mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology."

Gearing Up to Build Self-Driving Vehicles

Now comes news that Uber is staffing the ATC facility, and the kind of talent it's seeking provides further evidence that the company may be gearing up to mass produce its own self-driving vehicles someday. "Nineteen automotive-related positions were listed within the Careers section of the Uber website this week," many seeking multiple workers," according to IT World.

The company is looking to hire engineers with experience in machine learning, communications, hardware development, traffic simulation, vehicle testing, and robotics. Joachim Taiber, a professor at Clemson University who studies self-driving car technologies and also headed the BMW Information Technology Research Center at Clemson, told IT World that Uber simply could be amassing talent to build a strong knowledge base around autonomous car technology to compete with others in the space, such as Google and traditional automakers. And perhaps Apple, which has also been snatching up automotive engineering talent, and is rumored to be entering the autonomous car space.

But the fact that Uber is also seeking manufacturing engineers with experience in "vendor interactions and supplier management" could signal that the company is interested in more than just accumulating research and has an end-goal of producing self-driving cars on a larger scale, according to Bryant Walker Smith, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, who chairs the Emerging Technology Law Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. And with Uber's acquisition of the mapping software company DeCarta last month, the company has another important piece in place to successfully build and deploy a fleet of self-driving cars.

Google hasn't yet revealed its long-term plans or business model behind self-driving cars, only citing altruistic reasons, such as saving lives by preventing car accidents. We do know that Google is building 100 autonomous-vehicle prototypes to test around its Mountain View, California headquarters. And Chris Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving car project, made clear earlier this year that the company is "definitely not in the business of making cars" and will instead work with existing automotive suppliers to build the prototypes.

The common assumption is that Google could be planning to deploy fleets of robo-taxis in urban areas, and that this fits with Google's primary search revenue source since it's easy to imagine autonomous-car passengers spending time online rather than occupied with driving. But building its own self-driving cars makes perfect sense for Uber to support its existing ride-hailing business model and boost its bottom line.

And while Uber manufacturing robo-taxis may seem far-fetched, in a recent report Morgan Stanley's lead auto analyst envisioned a future of "roving fleets of completely autonomous vehicles in operation 24 hours a day, available on your smartphone." Given Tesla's quick rise, self-driving Uber cars could happen sooner than anyone expects.

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