This is a $300 million project that will see Volvo developing and producing the driverless models, which will be subsequently acquired by Uber for use in its ride-sharing fleet. Google and Uber have both said that human operators would be in self-driving cars.
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Kalanick also revealed Uber’s acquisition of Otto, a company working on autonomous big-rig trucks that was founded in early 2016 by two former Google employees who had worked on Google Maps and Google’s own self-driving cars projects. Now, the firm is leveraging its Otto self-driving technology to partner with automakers to create a fleet of self-driving Uber taxis. The high-tech ride-hailing company said that an unspecified number of autonomous Ford Fusions with human backup drivers will pick up passengers just like normal Uber vehicles. The goal is to have the cars fully autonomous, minus a person in the driver’s seat, by 2021.
“Partnership is crucial to our self-driving strategy because Uber has no experience making cars”, Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick wrote in a blogpost.
Over the previous year, Uber has poached hundreds of former Google employees and has created a research facility in Pittsburgh dedicated to autonomous-driving technology. “This alliance places Volvo at the heart of the current technological revolution in the automotive industry”, adds Volvo Cars president and CEO Håkan Samuelsson. It is a world leader in the development of active safety and autonomous drive technology and possesses an unrivaled safety credibility.
“Over one million people die in auto accidents every year”, Travis Kalanick, Uber chief executive, said. “By combining Uber’s self-driving technology with Volvo’s state-of-the art vehicles and safety technology, we’ll get to the future faster than going it alone” he wrote.
Starting sometime this month, Uber customers will be able to summon Uber rides from their phones as usual, but the self-driving cars will be sent to customers at random.
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By using human backup drivers, Uber is basically testing the technology and taking people along for the ride, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of SC professor who studies self-driving technology.
