Tesla and Uber both have their respective advantages. Tesla can sell cars with autopilot even when it doesn't work all the time, but they would have very hard

Tesla and Uber both have their respective advantages. Tesla can sell cars with autopilot even when it doesn't work all the time, but they would have very hard time selling autopilot if it only worked on very specific cities or "tracks." In contrast, Uber can start rolling out autopilot which works very reliably but only on a specific and well-understood "track." They can start phasing it into the market by dispatching autonomous vehicles only when you request a route that they're very confident on. In the medium term, they can dispense with having a driver on such routes at all. One thing that Uber might try is a self-driving car "delivery" service. People might not be confident enough to ride in a self-driving car yet, but you could have an app deliver a car for you to drive to your destination (maybe w/ driver assist). For Tesla, the incremental strategy is partial autonomy "anywhere." For Uber, it's probably full autonomy in specific locations. That's a huge advantage because it can seamlessly mesh with their existing app—they can simply start serving a percentage of Uber rides with autonomous vehicles. Cynically, I think Google is realizing that they need an incremental adoption plan and that's why they're launching their own ridesharing platform.