Uber sells self-driving car development division to start-up

Taxi service Uber sells its autonomous car development division to Aurora, a start-up that develops autonomous cars. In addition, Uber is investing in the start-up to purchase the product in the future.

The branch of Uber, Advanced Technologies Group, is immediately part of Aurora, both companies say. In addition, Uber is investing $ 400 million in Aurora to develop Aurora Driver, a platform for developing hardware and software for self-driving cars. Uber director Dara Khosrowshahi will also join the start-up’s board.

Uber has developed self-driving cars in recent years, with the aim of making them drive around cities like taxis without human drivers. There was already a rumor about the sale last month. That rumor stated that the division was too expensive for Uber to continue to fund itself.

Aurora, Aurora Innovation in full, was founded in 2017 by veterans of the self-driving car divisions of Google, Uber and Tesla, Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnell and Sterling Anderson, respectively. Uber started its self-driving car division in 2015, and those cars first hit the road in 2016.