Dara Khosrowshahi
Analyst · Bank of America
Justin, in terms of AVs and our strategy, it really remains the same. First thing I would say is that we think that the AV technology at maturity is going to be very good for the industry. It will be great for Uber. It holds a promise of safer rides. It holds a promise of expanding the marketplace by lowering prices and making mobility, delivery available for a wider swath of the population. And usually, when we see kind of lower prices for any service, you see higher adoption for a service, and that really is the promise of AV.
At the same time, we think that the technology is going to take a lot of time to develop. Obviously, there has to be a regulatory framework to put in place. And as the technology develops, we think that actually you're not going to make a jump from one tech -- human drivers fully to AV. There's going to be a relatively long period, a transition period that happens. Where for example, on Uber, you see it now, you have a combination of human drivers during -- human drivers fulfilling certain rides or deliveries or even loads on the trucking side along with AVs as well. And over period of time, you'll see kind of the penetration of AVs increase. I think it's very difficult to predict that period of time.
But really, what we bring is the systems that we put in place, the pricing, matching, routing algorithms, the payments systems that we have on a global basis as well as the demand that we bring that enables us to partner with these AV providers to really drive utilization of their assets, this is very expensive tech that's been developed over a long time. And if you're an AV fleet owner or you are an individual owner of a car, whether that's a Tesla or another kind of car, you're just going to make more money and make a higher kind of return on your investment if you plug in your AVs into the Uber ecosystem and into Uber demand.
So we think we bring lots to the table. We're looking to partner with the AV industry. I do think that there's a good amount of excitement over some of the newer technologies and kind of the imitation models that we see in terms of AV. And you see that promise with Tesla's FSD. It looks like a great product. And also, you see that same promise in a lot of smaller players, whether that's a Wayve in the U.K. who got funded for $1 billion, a Waabi that, for example, we have investments in, these imitation learning models have a lot of promise over kind of the more classic heuristic-based development that you saw with AV.
And we think it's going to allow more players into the marketplace. We think it's going to reduce the amount of capital required to develop these systems over a long period of time. And we're looking to partner with big players and small players. And again, as this technology develops, we think we will be a big partner in it, and we think, ultimately, it will benefit AV players and it will benefit ourselves and riders and eaters as well.