Uber has to use M&A to acquire AV technology, says JMP Securities

With Tesla (TSLA) planning to launch unsupervised full self-driving as a paid service in Austin in June and in California by year end while Tesla stated that there is high interest from OEMs to license full self driving technology, more competition appears to be coming to the U.S. ride-sharing market, JMP Securities tells investors in a research note. The firm is increasingly convinced that Uber (UBER) has to use M&A to buy autonomous vehicle technology to compete as Waymo scales its business, while the firm sees Tesla’s robotaxi network to ultimately incorporate other OEMs, competing directly with Uber. With competition increasing from Waymo, JMP believes the risk/reward in shares is balanced at current levels. The firm has a Market Perform rating on Uber.