Travis Kalanick’s Atoms Might Be Getting Into the Robotaxi Business
Overview
Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and former CEO of Uber, has suggested that his current venture, Atoms, could move into the robotaxi space. According to Kalanick, the effort would let him finish what he calls "unfinished business" — a reference to the autonomous-vehicle ambitions he pursued during his time at Uber but never saw through to a mass-market product.
Kalanick's History With Self-Driving Cars
Kalanick's interest in autonomous vehicles is not new. Under his leadership, Uber built the Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), a self-driving unit that tested vehicles on public roads in cities including Pittsburgh and Phoenix. The program was set back significantly in 2018 after one of its test vehicles was involved in a fatal collision with a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. Kalanick was ousted from Uber's CEO role in 2017 amid a broader set of governance and culture controversies, and Uber ultimately sold ATG to Aurora Innovation in 2020, exiting the self-driving business it had spent years and significant capital building.
What Is Atoms?
Atoms is the venture Kalanick has been building since leaving Uber, following his earlier post-Uber project CloudKitchens, a ghost-kitchen real estate company. Details on Atoms' specific technology and roadmap have been limited publicly, but Kalanick's comments point to robotics and autonomous transportation as an area of focus. A move into robotaxis would put Atoms in direct competition with companies that have spent the better part of a decade developing and scaling driverless ride-hailing services.
The Robotaxi Landscape in 2026
The competitive environment Kalanick would be entering looks very different from the one Uber left in 2020. Waymo has expanded commercial robotaxi service across multiple U.S. cities, Tesla has pushed its own robotaxi ambitions tied to its Full Self-Driving software, and Amazon-owned Zoox has continued testing purpose-built autonomous vehicles. Any new entrant would need to contend with established regulatory relationships, safety track records, and the enormous capital requirements that have historically defined the sector.
Why This Matters
Kalanick's potential return to robotaxis is notable less for the technical novelty and more for the narrative arc it represents: the founder who was pushed out of Uber partly over the fallout from its self-driving program now has an opportunity, through Atoms, to attempt the same goal on his own terms. Whether Atoms actually launches a robotaxi service, and on what timeline, remains unconfirmed beyond Kalanick's own remarks.
FAQ
Who is Travis Kalanick? He is the co-founder and former CEO of Uber, who left the company in 2017 and later founded CloudKitchens and Atoms.
What did Uber's self-driving unit become? Uber sold its Advanced Technologies Group to Aurora Innovation in 2020 after a fatal 2018 test-vehicle accident.
Has Atoms confirmed a robotaxi product? Not formally — the reporting is based on Kalanick's own comments about finishing "unfinished business," without additional public specifics on Atoms' plans.