Waabi hires Uber Freight CEO to lead commercialization of self-driving trucks

By August 12, 2025
Two people in fluorescent vests stand in front of trucks
Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun (left) and COO Lior Ron (right) in front of Waabi trucks.
Lior Ron appointed as COO as Waabi looks to transition from R&D to deployment.

Lior Ron, the co-founder and CEO of Uber’s freight operations arm, is joining Toronto-based Waabi as the Canadian startup targets human-free deployment of its AI-powered, self-driving trucks by the end of the year.

The executive told BetaKit in an interview that he is leaving Uber Freight next week to become chief operating officer at Waabi. Ron will focus on shaping Waabi’s go-to-market strategy and expanding key industry partnerships. 

“I think Waabi is ready for prime time. Autonomy is now ready.”

Lior Ron
Waabi

“We’re entering the next phase of the company, going from R&D to commercialization,” Waabi CEO and founder Raquel Urtasun told BetaKit. “I couldn’t think of a better leader.” 

Urtasun added Waabi’s goal is for its self-driving trucks, currently deployed in Texas with drivers on board, to go completely autonomous by the end of the year—an initiative Ron will lead in his new role. 

“I think Waabi is ready for prime time,” Ron told BetaKit. “Autonomy is now ready. Waabi has proven that.”

The Israeli-American businessman founded Silicon Valley-based self-driving tech company Otto in 2016 after a stint at Google. Uber acquired Otto just months later, and Ron joined to lead Uber Freight, which handles supply-chain and freight logistics through software solutions. 

Ron told BetaKit he would stay on as chairman at Uber Freight and work out of Waabi’s San Francisco office, making regular trips to Waabi’s Toronto headquarters.

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Waabi’s executive team will now count two former Uber leaders. Urtasun served as chief scientist of Uber’s self-driving unit from its Toronto office. When Uber sold Uber ATG to American autonomous vehicle startup Aurora in late 2020, its Toronto lab was left out of the deal. Urtasun left the company shortly thereafter to launch Waabi with $100 million in financing, with Uber and Aurora backing the round.

Uber has continued its financial ties to Waabi since then, co-leading a $275-million Series B with US-based Khosla Ventures last year, bringing the startup’s total funding to over $389 million. Waabi also partnered with Uber Freight in 2023 to bundle Waabi’s core technology, Waabi Driver, with Uber Freight’s logistics platform, marketplace, and autonomous trucking operations to create a driver-as-a-service solution.

Ron left Uber Freight in March 2018 amid legal troubles involving Otto, but returned in August of that year. In 2017, Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski, who co-founded Google’s self-driving unit, Waymo, was accused of stealing documents from Google before leaving for Otto. Uber settled the civil dispute by paying Waymo roughly $245 million USD in Uber stock. Levandowski was criminally convicted after pleading guilty to one count of trade secret theft in 2020 and later pardoned by United States (US) President Donald Trump in early 2021. Waymo also accused Ron and Levandowski of improperly recruiting engineers for Otto, and Uber paid a $9.7-million USD arbitration settlement on Ron’s behalf in 2020.

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Waabi-powered trucks for Uber Freight have been regularly deployed between Dallas and Houston, and the two companies are looking to expand joint operations. Urtasun said that both parties are “really happy” with the results so far.

Waabi is developing an AI-powered virtual driving system for autonomous trucks with safety features that it claims will outperform human drivers. This year, the company released a mixed reality testing platform that it says allows the AI driver system to navigate infinite traffic scenarios. The firm has also focused on making its tech “provably safe,” developing an industry-applicable realism metric that it claims can build digital twins of the world with 99.7 percent accuracy.

Earlier this year, Waabi teamed up with Swedish automaker and investor Volvo to build and commercialize self-driving trucks. Urtasun told BetaKit at the time that the deal was “a massive step forward” and the last piece the startup needed in order to build a solution that can scale. 

Urtasun said Waabi has focused on US pilots because Canada does not yet have the regulatory framework to support on-road testing for its tech. At Toronto Tech Week, the CEO called for the Canadian government to quickly bring forward a regulatory framework to ensure the responsible deployment of AI-powered physical technologies, such as self-driving vehicles.

Feature image courtesy Waabi.

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