Uber slams Waymo suit as 'baseless'
SAN FRANCISCO — Uber reacted strongly Friday to a lawsuit brought by Alphabet Inc.'s self-driving car company Waymo, calling it a "baseless" ploy to hinder the progress of a competitor.
On Thursday, Waymo leveled explosive charges against Uber-owned Otto, a self-driving truck company started a year ago by former Google car veteran Anthony Levandowski. The suit claims that Levandowski stole critical technology related to Waymo's LiDAR sensors shortly before leaving the company in order to start Otto. Last August, Uber bought Otto for $670 million.
“We are incredibly proud of the progress that our team has made," said Uber spokesperson MoMo Zhou. "We have reviewed Waymo's claims and determined them to be a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor and we look forward to vigorously defending against them in court. In the meantime, we will continue our hard work to bring self-driving benefits to the world.”
Also on Friday, Otto got a new competitor in the self-driving truck game. Embark was founded by two 21-year-old Canadian roboticists who secured millions in seed funding and, last month, began testing their lone self-driving rig on Nevada roads.
Otto has suggested that its trucks can drive themselves between highway exists while drivers sleep in the cab. But Embark wants the trucks to drive with no humans on board. Drivers would get in once the trucks exit the highway, where humans will be responsible for delivering the goods into city centers.
LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging, and the sensor is part of a suite of tech gadgets — including cameras and traditional radar — that are engaged to generate situational data that is then processed by an autonomous vehicle's algorithm-fueled computer.
Google's program started nearly eight years ago, back when self-driving cars were more a sci-fi project than realistic transportation alternative.
Ride-hailing giant Uber, which launched in San Francisco in 2009, quickly bought its way into the autonomous tech game by hiring dozens of Carnegie Mellon University robotics experts. It eventually set up its own research facility in the school's Pittsburgh backyard.
Last summer, Uber began testing its autonomous cars in Pittsburgh. A recent attempt to do the same in San Francisco was quashed within a day when the California Department of Motor Vehicles objected to the fact that Uber did not have the correct permits to test in California. Uber moved its fleet to Arizona.
Waymo's lawsuit comes six months after Uber bought Otto because the alleged evidence of theft stemmed from a supplier accidentally sending an attachment containing schematics of an Uber LiDAR circuit board on Dec. 13. The similarities between the units ultimately led to the suit.
Tech company and automakers alike are in a furious race to develop self-driving tech that will meet both pending state and federal regulations as well as reassure the public about the technology's safety and reliability. Most experts in the field predict that the first self-driving vehicles will arrive by 2021, and probably be part of ride-hailing fleets.
If Waymo's suit has merit, it could significantly hamper Uber's self-driving plans, given that Levandowski oversees all of Uber's autonomous efforts and Otto's tech is at its core.
In its blog post, Waymo noted that "misappropriating this technology is akin to stealing a secret recipe from a beverage company."
Uber has faced a serious of challenges of late, ranging from a #DeleteUber backlash due to its initial reaction to President Trump's immigration ban, to more recent charges from a former employee that the company promotes a toxic and sexist work culture.
Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava on Twitter: @marcodellacava