Robotaxis could displace drivers in 10 to 15 years, Uber CEO says

Robotaxis could end driver jobs

Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has publicly stated that the rise of self-driving cars, or robotaxis, presents a “big societal question” about job displacement. He has stressed that no easy solution is yet available for the millions of human drivers who will eventually lose their income to automation.

The CEO has stated that mass-replacing human drivers will become a “real issue” in the next 10 to 15 years. However, he also confirmed that for the next 5 to 7 years, Uber will still need to hire more human drivers due to the quick and consistent growth of its current core ride-hailing business.

Robotaxis are now riding with Uber

Uber is partnering with Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Google’s parent company, to deploy robotaxis today. This partnership enables real customers to book driverless rides in the US cities of Atlanta and Austin directly through the familiar Uber app on their phones.

During Uber’s Q2 2025 earnings call, CEO Khosrowshahi announced that the average Waymo robotaxi completed more daily trips than 99% of Uber’s human drivers on the platform in those two cities. This high rate is possible because robotaxis operate nearly 24 hours a day without breaks.

Waymo’s experience is built on data

Waymo utilizes its self-driving system, the Waymo Driver, which learns from a vast amount of real-world experience. Waymo announced it reached 100 million total autonomous miles driven on public roads by mid-2025. The company’s safety comparison is based on 71 million autonomous miles driven through March 2025.

Waymo’s analysis indicates 88% fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers over comparable miles. The data’s complete statistical confidence mainly applies to the long-term, fully autonomous operations in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Driverless car service is expanding

Waymo’s public service, Waymo One, is active in five major U.S. cities. These current cities are Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Uber-partnered markets of Austin and Atlanta. The service provides over 250,000 paid trips each week.

Waymo is quickly expanding its reach. The company has publicly announced plans to launch its fully autonomous service in Miami and Washington, D.C. by 2026, bringing the confirmed number of major operating cities to at least seven.

Reported coverage areas include 90 square miles in Austin and 65 square miles in Atlanta, with additional zones operating in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Partnership details and vehicle specs

In the Uber and Waymo partnership, customers in Austin and Atlanta can hail a Waymo ride only through the Uber app. The specific car model they get is a fully autonomous, all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicle. These reliable vehicles can comfortably carry up to four riders in any available seat at a time.

Waymo vehicles are available to Uber riders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in the approved areas. Waymo plans to grow the fleet to several hundred vehicles in each city it serves. This constant availability enhances Uber’s service without incurring additional labor costs.

New AI jobs are replacing driving work

While driving jobs face displacement, AI is also creating new types of work, according to Uber’s CEO.

Uber is establishing new on-demand work opportunities for independent contractors through its new AI solutions arm, which creates tasks that differ from traditional driving jobs and require specific technical skills.

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Future of Jobs report projected 85 million jobs may be lost to automation, but 97 million new jobs could be created by AI by 2025.

The robotaxi competition is fierce

The competition to launch fully driverless robotaxis is growing fast in the US. Zoox, which is owned by Amazon, is developing a steering-wheel-free robotaxi and has announced plans to launch in Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Area in 2025.

Tesla began an early-access robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, in mid-2025, but it is a supervised service. This means a human safety monitor must remain in the front seat, unlike Waymo’s driverless operations.

Lyft maintains AV pilots with multiple partners, e.g., May Mobility in Atlanta, but specific Dallas/Mobileye and Nashville/Waymo timelines remain unconfirmed.

The financial shift to automation

The major shift to robotaxis is driven by financial goals for ride-hailing companies. The single most significant expense for Uber is the money it pays out to its millions of human drivers and delivery people every year, totaling billions of dollars. Labor is the highest cost factor.

Uber’s financial reports for Q2 2025 showed that the mobility segment’s gross bookings alone were $23.76 billion. Industry analysts estimate that removing the driver can reduce the total cost per mile of a ride by 50% to 70% over time, thereby significantly reducing the high labor costs that are included in this figure.

Uber’s self-driving unit was ATG

Uber previously attempted to develop its own self-driving technology through a major internal division called the Advanced Technologies Group (ATG). This group was launched in 2015 to develop its own autonomous vehicle system, aiming to power its future fleet and compete directly with Waymo and others.

Uber spent massive sums of money trying to develop this technology before deciding to sell the unit. The company’s spending on self-driving research alone was $457 million in 2018, and this figure increased to $530 million in 2019, demonstrating the substantial scale of its yearly investment.

The fatal incident and the sale

Uber ATG faced a significant setback with a fatal accident involving one of its test vehicles. The vehicle, which had a human safety driver behind the wheel, struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, in March 2018. This tragedy caused Uber to pause all public road testing of its autonomous cars globally.

Following mounting costs and a safety incident, Uber sold the ATG division to the startup Aurora in December 2020. Uber invested an additional $400 million into Aurora as part of the sale and took a 26% ownership stake in the newly combined company.

Uber’s past acquisition of Otto

Before selling ATG, Uber made significant acquisitions to quickly build up its self-driving engineering talent. In August 2016, Uber purchased Otto, a self-driving truck startup. The acquisition was intended to enable Uber to quickly transition into autonomous technology, particularly for its extensive freight and delivery networks.

The high-cost deal for Otto was valued at an equity stake equal to about one percent of Uber’s valuation at the time, which was estimated to be around $680 million. This costly acquisition showed Uber’s initial aggressive strategy to own the core autonomous technology.

Waymo’s legal battle with Uber

Waymo, originally known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, was founded in 2009 and filed a significant lawsuit against Uber in 2017. Waymo claimed that one of its former engineers had stolen confidential trade secrets and technical information before joining the Otto self-driving truck startup.

The two companies settled the case in February 2018, just before the trial was scheduled to begin. As part of the settlement, Uber agreed to give Waymo an equity stake in the company worth about $245 million at the time, officially ending the lengthy legal battle over trade secrets

Uber’s founding and early service

Uber’s idea was born in 2008 when co-founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp had trouble getting a taxi in Paris, France. They officially launched the company as UberCab in 2009 in San Francisco, offering a luxury black car service.

The company’s name was quickly shortened to Uber in October 2010, and it received an early round of investment funding of $1.25 million. Co-founder Travis Kalanick became CEO in December 2010, replacing Ryan Graves and steering the company’s early direction toward rapid expansion.

Uber’s shift to the cheaper service

A significant change for the company occurred in 2013 with the launch of the UberX service. This new option allowed drivers to use their own personal vehicles instead of expensive black luxury cars, instantly making the rides more affordable and accessible to many more people.

This cheaper service led to a surge in Uber’s total number of trips globally. In the most recent financial report for Q2 2025, Uber reported that its users completed over 3.26 billion trips across the platform, demonstrating the significant growth in global demand.

Change in CEO leadership

The company underwent a significant leadership change when Dara Khosrowshahi was hired as the new CEO in 2017. He took over from co-founder Travis Kalanick, who stepped down from the role following a series of negative public issues and internal governance scandals that damaged the company’s reputation.

Khosrowshahi was the CEO of the large travel company Expedia for 12 years before he moved to lead Uber. His job was to focus on financial stability, leading the company to report a total revenue of $12.65 billion in the second quarter of 2025.

Want to see how this partnership could change city rides? Check out Volkswagen and Uber launch autonomous EV taxi service.

The future is a big social question

The extremely high efficiency of robotaxis will force a reckoning on the job market. Uber’s CEO is correct in calling job displacement a huge social issue because many people rely on driving for income. The lower operating costs of driverless cars will be almost impossible for human drivers to match.

The robotaxi industry is moving fast, and companies are planning quick expansion. Waymo currently operates its commercial service in five major US cities and has publicly announced plans to launch in two more major cities, Miami and Washington, D.C., by 2026, for a total of seven cities in operation.

Interested in why Tesla is holding back key data? Read more in Tesla pushes to keep Robotaxi safety details confidential.

What do you think—exciting progress or big concern?

Read More From This Brand:

• Tesla Debuts Fully Autonomous Cybercab Robotaxi In Paris
• Volkswagen Surpasses Tesla in the Race for Robotaxis
• How robotaxis could change the future of car ownership

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This slideshow was made with AI assistance and human editing.