Uber just purchased the self-driving truck startup created by former Googlers - here's a look inside

As Uber ramps up its driverless car operations in Pittsburgh, it will have some help from several ex-Googlers who have already mastered the technology.

According to a report from Max Chafkin at Bloomberg, Uber has purchased Otto, the self-driving truck startup founded by Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron, both former high-level Google employees.

Levandowski will now take over Uber's entire self-driving car operations and Uber plans to open two more R&D offices: one in Palo Alto and another in Otto's offices in San Francisco, Bloomberg reports.

Otto is only a 6-month-old startup, but it already has four trucks on the road 24/7 and is sprinting toward what Ron described to Business Insider as the not-so-distant future of self-driving semis, where existing trucks can install one of Otto's $30,000 kits to produce autonomous driving capabilities.

"There's more and more demand for truck drivers to drive more with less time," Ron says. "We're living in an on-demand era where we all want to press a button and have something arrive as fast as possible. Well, there's a truck behind all of those products."

Business Insider recently got a look inside Otto's cavernous headquarters to see where the innovation is cracking. Check it out: