Car companies do that for the really standard, commoditized stuff. But they try to do it on their own for the cutting edge stuff. Toyota developed their own hyb

Car companies do that for the really standard, commoditized stuff. But they try to do it on their own for the cutting edge stuff. Toyota developed their own hybrid technology, and it paid off for them big time. Having a better hybrid system than anyone else gave the Prius a serious leg up in the competition. Honda's done similar work with variable valve timing, GM did it with automatic transmissions, etc. I think, though, that that's a tangential point, because Uber is not a car company. As others have theorized, Uber has an interest in developing it themselves because self-driving represents an existential threat. They have absolutely no defense against someone else using self-driving to do to them what they used gig economy labor pricing to do to taxi companies.