The self-driving car, the one capable of moving around without a driver at the wheel, is one of the projects in which Google has placed a lot of ambition and effort in recent years. Not even companies such as Mercedes or Audi have been able to develop models as advanced as those of the technological giant, which last year presented the design of a vehicle that has amply proven that it is able to travel throughout the city without a driver.

Nonetheless, an important rival of the search-engine company has emerged in the race this week: Uber. The mobile app that revolutionized city transportation and that has also sparked an infinite amount of controversy in recent months, presented a coop-agreement with Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University to also develop a self-driving vehicle.

The objective of both companies, however, is much more than simply becoming the inventors of the first self-driving car in history. The aim of Google and Uber is more like a war to control the future self-driving taxi market. “The Uber experience is costly, not only because of the car but also because of the guy who has to drive it”, Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO, stated during a technology conference in 2014, in this way suggesting what his company’s long-term plans might be.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg Business affirms that Google, despite its investments in Uber, would be developing its own car-sharing app. According to Bloomberg Business, Uber executives have even seen images of what could be the new app that would already be in operation for its employees.