Uber Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said it was “possible” the ride-hailing giant would look for outside investors for its self-driving car unit, but isn’t currently searching for backers.
The company’s pouring large, undisclosed sums of money into its Advanced Technologies Group, which has developed plans to build out VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) vehicles at scale and speed, with a goal of them becoming a mass-market technology.
Khosrowshahi was speaking to Bloomberg News’s Brad Stone at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Last year, Uber announced it would open a lab in Paris focused on flying cars, which would be its first research and development center outside of the U.S. Khosrowshahi said at the time that the company was “no longer just about cars,” but also “urban mobility.”
Toyota Motor Corp. – which has a deep interest in being the first to the flying car market – invested $500 million in Uber 2018, and sees the American company’s Advanced Technologies Group as essential to its corporate value.
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