Uber announced new features for their apps at its annual product event Go/Get, including allowing users to book a party bus. Ian Sherr, editor at large at CNET, joined Cheddar News to break down the updates that also include new electric cars and autonomous delivery. "I think what's interesting is that they're trying to still expand out what Uber is," he said. "This is all kind of tied into making Uber a bigger thing in our minds."

Closing Bell

Uber Announces Party Bus, Electric Car Booking Services at Go/Get 2022

the closing bell on shelter news, everyone. Uber hosting its annual product event today and the ride hailing giant announcing several new products and features focused on travel and sustainability, including a new tier dedicated to electric vehicles as well as a new autonomous delivery service for Uber eats and the ability to book a party bus joining me now is Ian sure, editor at large at Cnet. Ian great to have you on the show. What's the biggest takeaway from Uber's product event today? I mean obviously it's the party bus, right? You know, actually, I think what's interesting is that they're trying to still expand out what Uber is. I think a lot of people have this conception in their minds of what Uber does and a lot of us think of just the app and ordering either a taxi or someone who is driving like they're a taxi or a black car, but Uber is really trying to expand way past that. Right? And so you've got the stuff like the party busses, you've got stuff like this new tier of the nicer electric cars, right? So the Tesla's instead of maybe the cheaper electric cars um and also even doing stuff like getting actually hooked up with events planning right and being able to make it so I can order food at an event or even helping companies be able to give me an Uber voucher when I go to a party or when I go to a commencement or something else and allow me to take there might use their money in Uber to go home. So this is all kind of tied into making Uber a bigger thing in our minds, a bigger thing in our minds, a lot of updates to help the consumer, the passenger. But what about the driver ian what new announcements did Uber make today? That's going to benefit the driver, especially when it comes to electric vehicles? Yeah, so a lot of this is actually tied around trying to make sure that people feel a lot more comfortable with these electric vehicles. So for example, there's actually a whole section of the app that they're kind of focusing around TVs and they're going to make it so that you can actually be able to order these nicer E V s but also work with any E V s if you want. Um, there's a lot more kind of just attention being paid to that. So, I think part of this is really helping those people get that kind of attention and also draw more real, more Uber driver writers to the Uber drivers who have them. Uber is not gonna let you book a party bus. I think that's the biggest takeaway Ian for me as well, how many people can fit in one of these party busses, how reliable is it? Do you have to book in advance or can you literally hale at the moment a party bus? Yeah, so it depends, of course, that's always the answer. Right, So what does the idea here is more than Uber XL Right. So for those of us who have done the Uber XL or the larger SUVs, you know, you can fit roughly maybe eight people in there, but it's always a little tight. And so a lot of this is actually about making it so that you've got that next step of stuff, right? The party busses, but also just trying to have all these different sized vehicles there, right. There are things that are bigger than the Chevy Suburbans. So I think that's part of what they're thinking and yes, of course you want to be thinking about, Okay, well, if I'm going to order something that's going to carry around my, you know, dozen friends, I definitely need to plan ahead and stuff like that, but I think generally speaking Uber wants to be able to be, if you're doing transportation right, that you want to think of them and that's something that more often than not, I don't do if I'm thinking of stuff that's either really small or not a car related, do you expect that this will bring in new users and I mean, certainly the ability to hail a party bus, even the electric vehicle build out that Uber is adding here would seem like a few steps above what a lift is doing right now. Yeah, I mean, I don't think of it very much in terms of Uber versus Lyft because part of what Uber's problems here really is getting people to constantly use its platform but also being able to manage costs as they're doing it right. That's something we saw a lot during the pandemic stuff where we were transitioning from a lot of people using Uber ride hailing to Uber eats was a big deal right? Changed the company a lot of ways financially. So I think for them it's really about okay how do we expand into all these different areas and do it in a very responsible way. Part of the conversation about Uber in the previous years, especially before the most recent ceo was about how much the company spent to grow and clearly now they realized I think that they can't do that. I will also Uber announcing a new autonomous delivery pilot for Uber eats. What is this all about? Ian and how involved are the robots in this process? Well I don't think they get to decide what food they bring but what happens is that they're working with two small scale things in California and one of them is kind of like sidewalk robots. Right, So that'll be interesting enough itself if you are in southern California, I believe it's west Hollywood, if my memory serves right um they'll actually be able to do those deliveries but then they're also going to have deliveries by autonomous car, you're not going to be doing, you know ride hailing it but they're going to work with a startup that actually is doing autonomous car stuff by the way. That startup is also working with lift on different things. So just to keep in mind how interconnected all these people are. But essentially they're going to do deliveries by these autonomous cars. Now there are as far as I can tell, still going to be people in the car to make sure that it's safe. But generally speaking, the whole idea is let's get autonomous deliveries to be a lot more normal. All right. Ian sure. I love these product announcements. Such a good job. Thank you for coming on the show and breaking it down with me in the editor at large at Cnet.