Research from the ride-hail aggregator Obi finds Waymo is starting to edge up on Uber and Lyft in San Francisco. Tesla, which operates a ride-hail service with human drivers, is winning the price wars. In San Francisco, people wanting to get from point A to point B have a few fairly unique options. Then, starting last fall, Bay Area denizens also got access to electric automaker Tesla's ride-hail service, which operates as a "robotaxi" in Texas but as a more traditional service, with drivers behind the wheel, in California. For months, the new and futuristic "robotaxi" services felt like a novelty .

Uber is getting back into the robotaxi game, only this time it's tapping a third party to handle the self-driving tech. Motional, the Aptiv-Hyundai joint venture commercializing self-driving vehicle tech, will put its robotaxis on the Uber network later this year as part of a 10-year operating agreement that will eventually roll out to major cities across North America. The deal comes a year after the two companies struck a partnership to test autonomous delivery in Santa Monica, California using Motional's autonomous vehicles. As with the delivery pilot, the new agreement will feature Motional's all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5-based autonomous vehicles. Uber and Motional have not disclosed where it will launch first.

On an early April morning, around 4 am, a San Francisco Fire Department truck responding to a fire tried to pass a doubled-parked garbage truck by using the opposing lane. But a traveling autonomous vehicle, operated by the General Motors subsidiary Cruise without anyone inside, was blocking its path. While a human might have reversed to clear the lane, the Cruise car stayed put. The fire truck only passed the blockage when the garbage truck driver ran from their work to move their vehicle. "This incident slowed SFFD response to a fire that resulted in property damage and personal injuries," city officials wrote in a filing submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says his company wants to be the "Amazon for transportation." Friday, Amazon made clear that it intends to be the Amazon for transportation. The ecommerce giant said it had agreed to acquire Bay Area-based autonomous vehicle company Zoox, a deal reportedly worth more than $1 billion. Since its founding in 2014, Zoox has been known for its technical chops, its secretiveness, and its sky-high ambition. While Waymo is focusing on self-driving tech and leaving the car building to places like Detroit, Zoox has stuck to its plan to design a robotaxi from the ground up--and operate a ride-hail service.

Ford is finally taking the plunge and setting a date for the launch of a fleet of fully autonomous cars. Ford CEO Mark Fields announced that the company is working toward launching a fleet of commercial, level 4 (one level below a completely autonomous system, in which drivers don't have to be engaged) vehicles in a ride-hail service by 2021. The details of that ride-hail service -- such as which company Ford will partner with to operate it -- still haven't been determined. Fields made the announcement at a meeting with Ford employees at the company's Palo Alto research and development center. As part of that effort, Ford is investing in Velodyne, a self-driving tech company, and is working with three other startups.