This Week in Rideshare: Food trucks, Prop 22 and Waymo.

Voters get fed, an engineer speaks out, and Waymo rolls onto the road. LegalRideshare breaks it down

Whether it’s hungry voters or self-driving cars, it’s all here in “This Week in Rideshare.”

MONDAY 10/5/20

In an effort to keep voters happy, Uber Eats is rolling out food trucks. Travel+ Leisure explains:

The rideshare company will send out 180 food trucks to dozens of cities across the country, handing out everything from Nashville hot chicken to doughnuts and burgers to people waiting to vote, Uber shared with Travel + Leisure.

TUESDAY 10/6/20

In a startling announcement, an Uber engineer goes public against Prop 22. Tech Crunch reported:

Uber claims Prop 22 would be good for drivers, but that depends on Uber the company treating drivers better. I know from my experience working as an Uber engineer there is a slim chance of that happening. At the beginning of the pandemic, we learned Uber was about to embark on a round of layoffs. For weeks we sat around not knowing if we’d keep our jobs and health insurance.

WEDNESDAY 10/7/20

Uber is going beyond food. Fortune explains:

Uber Eats wants to expand beyond delivering pizza, tacos, and noodles to also delivering flowers, pet supplies, convenience items, and unique finds from local shops.

“This is Eats entering its next chapter of maturity,” said Daniel Danker, head of product for Uber Eats. “This is Uber Eats becoming the place for instant access to local commerce.”

THURSDAY 10/8/20

The push for Prop 22 has now gone…mobile. La Times explains:

If you’ve called for a ride through Uber in California recently, you may have felt like you were being asked for more than just your money.

Last week the ride-hailing app served users with a pop-up threatening that if voters failed to pass Proposition 22 on the Nov. 3 ballot, wait times and prices would ratchet up, and drivers would lose their livelihoods.

To move forward with ordering a ride, users had to tap the “confirm” button on the message.

FRIDAY 10/9/20

It appears self-driving cars…are actually here. Washington Post has more:

Waymo is launching fully driverless vehicles to the public, a milestone achievement for Silicon Valley’s self-driving car industry that comes during a global pandemic in which efforts to limit person-to-person contact have found a welcoming audience.

The company, a part of Google parent Alphabet, said Thursday it is opening up its driverless ride-hailing service to riders in the Phoenix metro area, enabling anyone in the region to download its app and hail a ride without a driver in the front seat. It follows an extended public trial for the company’s ride-hailing service in which riders were able to use it for commutes, grocery runs and routine tasks, such as bringing their kids to school.