It looks like Uber is getting serious about its plan for self-driving cars
According to The Verge, Uber is working on a new self-driving car endeavor at the University of Arizona.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey released a statement Tuesday about the partnership, which will focus primarily on research and development in mapping and optics. As part of the partnership, Uber will donate $25,000 of its vast $7 billion warchest to the university's College of Optical Sciences.
Months ago, Uber made a play for the self-driving car space by attracting staff from Carnegie Mellon University's robotics department. At the time, some complained that Uber's big hiring move in Pittsburgh completely gutted competing, local projects.
People - mainly software developers at first - started leaving CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) back in January. Soon, nearly a third of the department's staff had moved around the corner to a new facility set up by Uber in a renovated chocolate factory.
All in all, 40 former NREC staff made the move. The Verge points out that some of the department's top ranking people now work for Uber, including six out of eight of NREC's commercialization specialists, and Anthony Stentz, the center's director for the past four and a half years.
In February, Uber and CMU went public with a partnership deal that was to result in joint advances in research and development for maps, vehicle safety, and autonomous driving. Uber will also fund faculty chairs and graduate fellowships for the university.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has pointed out the benefits of self-driving cars in the past, highlighting that creating a fleet of driverless vehicles removes most of the cost of the service - which could eventually remove the need for car ownership completely.
"The reason Uber could be expensive is because you're not just paying for the car - you're paying for the other dude in the car," Kalanick said at Recode's Code Conference in May 2014. "When there's no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle. So the magic there is, you basically bring the cost below the cost of ownership for everybody, and then car ownership goes away."
Here's the full text of the email sent out to University of Arizona staff Tuesday, courtesy of The Verge:
Business Insider has reached out to Uber for comment and will update this article when we hear back.