The case for Uber in an autonomous vehicle (AV) future

Uber should ultimately benefit from autonomous vehicles because they can expand ride-hailing demand, reinforce its aggregator role and take years to materially disrupt earnings.

• Montaka established a long position in Uber earlier in 2026, citing a valuation near 18x earnings, 20%+ growth on more than US$200 billion of gross bookings, operating leverage and a quasi-duopoly position.
• Ridesharing represents less than 1.5% of US vehicle miles travelled and less than 1% globally, while human drivers account for about 70% of the price of an Uber ride; removing that cost could eventually bring ride-hailing below the all-in cost of car ownership.
• Even with severe market-share losses, Montaka estimates that Uber’s US Mobility segment could compound at a high-single-digit CAGR for more than a decade as adoption expands, with possible additional benefits from higher take rates and lower insurance costs.
• Uber has announced about 20 autonomous-vehicle partnerships, including WeRide, Pony.ai, May Mobility, Lucid and Nuro; Montaka expects a fragmented multi-provider market in which Uber’s demand aggregation, hybrid human-and-autonomous network and demand density remain valuable.
• US Mobility accounts for about 25% of Uber’s total gross bookings, roughly 75% of US Mobility profits come from outside the 20 largest cities, and robotaxis operate in only around a dozen US metropolitan areas.
• Waymo runs about 500,000 weekly trips, less than 0.25% of Uber’s run-rate volume, while Uber’s second-quarter 2026 Mobility trip growth alone exceeded 110 million quarter over quarter and was four times Waymo’s entire annual volume.

Takeaway: Investors should view autonomous vehicles as a long-term expansion opportunity rather than an immediate threat, although the thesis depends on slow adoption, a fragmented provider landscape and Uber’s ability to commercialise its platform strategy.