Volvo Sticks With Uber Despite Autonomous Crash and Stolen Tech Litigation

After Friday’s high-speed crash, it’s back to business as usual for Uber’s autonomous programs. Last week, one of the company’s self-driving Volvos was struck by a flesh-piloted crossover — causing Uber to temporarily ground its entire test fleet. With the exception of the wrecked unit, all of those vehicles are now back in action as the business attempts to get on with R&D while simultaneously moving its legal dispute with Waymo out of the public eye.

Meanwhile, Volvo’s 300-million-dollar alliance with the ride-sharing company remains unperturbed. In the crash’s aftermath, Volvo maintained that it would continue to support Uber and preserve the partnership.

According to a company spokesperson, Uber’s recently permitted San Francisco vehicles were the first to resume testing, while the Tempe, Arizona and Pittsburgh self-driving mules returned to work Monday evening. With things settled on the streets, Uber now has to worry about its courtroom battle with Alphabet’s Waymo — which has accused to company of pilfering some of its technology when it purchased former Google employee Anthony Levandowski’s Otto autonomous trucking platform.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Uber petitioned a San Francisco federal judge to hold an April 13th hearing on its arbitration request for key claims in the complaint filed by Waymo last month. Its lawyers informed the judge that Alphabet’s employment agreements contain broad provisions. However, Waymo seems to have intentionally left Levandowski out of the claim to avoid getting slowed down by just such a move. As Uber is the one being accused of patent-infringement, shifting the judge toward arbitration may be a nonstarter.

Waymo lawyer, Charles Verhoeven, addressed the issue during a March 16th hearing, after Uber’s lawyer Arturo Gonzalez told the court he planned to file a request for arbitration. Without offering details on how it apply to the individuals Waymo accuses of stealing information, Verhoeven reminded U.S. District Judge William Alsup that “those individuals are not parties” within its lawsuit.

After months of bad press, it makes sense that Uber would want to move this court case out of the public eye and buy itself a little time. However, none of the unpleasant publicity has seemed to phase Volvo’s partnership with the company. Still, the automaker has said that the partnership is purely for the sake of hardware development and has carefully distanced itself from Uber’s myriad of problems.

“They have to deal with those things, and it’s their responsibility,” Lex Kerssemakers, CEO of Volvo Car USA, told Automotive News earlier this year.

Dave Sullivan, an analyst at AutoPacific, believes that Volvo has everything to gain by maintaining a professional relationship with Uber. It reaps the rewards of the business’ autonomous testing programs while accepting a negligible amount of risk in exchange. “Volvo, at the top, is run by Chinese management, and they see the big picture,” Sullivan said. “Some human resource hiccups, looking 10 or 15 or 20 years down the road, aren’t going to throw this thing off the track.”

[Image: Volvo]