Tata (a large automobile company based in India with cars globally) invested $100m in Uber. I imagine there will be more from other companies.

Didn't Uber buy the Carnegie Mellon robotics division? Is it too much to think they might try for their own hardware platform?

It might be, but why else do so?

They will still need a chassis/engine before they have a viable car, and there's been no real external indication of them either developing that in house or partnering with/purchasing someone that can provide that expertise.

.. at least I think that's what the question is about.

Chinese automaker GAC recently invested in Uber. techcrunch.com/2015/12/21/uber-china-lands-strategic-investment-from-chinese-automaker-gac/

All eyes are on Silicone Valley, but I think China will be the first to allow fully autonomous cars on its roads (Chinese-made of course).

Uber planned to buy 2,500 driverless cars from Google (GX3200, investment of $375m), announced back in 2013 [1]

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/uberauto/

Look at the publication date. I'm not sure what TechCrunch was trying to accomplish doing that. It wasn't even the right day of the year for something like this.

Edit: Apparently the point was to test what rebloggers would believe: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/27/uber_goog...

And from Tesla too

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098997_uber-ceo-to-tesl...

I thought they just made a deal with CMU and then proceeded to recruit everyone to leave.

But they still need the actual vehicle hardware, chassis, motor, etc knowledge. CMU's robotics division is just provides the self-driving component.

Building a car is 5-10 years out. It's a long, slow process. And you need to clear dozens and dozens of safety protocols.

Developing a car is very expensive.

and yet it's the easy part in the self-driving car problem, re how you can navigate the car in a fully autonomous way.

To answer my own question after thinking for a couple minutes: maybe VW's fall will put it in a position for Uber to get in play.

Interesting point about VW: To my knowledge VW has no car sharing/CaaS service in Germany. Others are better setup if self driving cars take over: Opel (GM) has one, BMW has one (DriveNow), Daimler has one (Car2Go).

VW has Greenwheels (not really that common or popular though) and Quicar (only in Hannover)

Thanks, didn't know, haven't seen VW CaaS cars in Berlin yet.

You know that Google Ventures put $200m+ into Uber right?

So... the answer is Ford, I suppose.

Fiat/Chrysler? Renault? Nissan?

I doubt Toyota or Honda will bother with Uber. But who knows!

Google invested $1 billion into uber a few years ago, didn't they?

Don't forget Apple.