“When people can push a button and reliably get an affordable ride across town, things change for the better-and quickly”, Levandowski wrote in an announcement on Uber’s website.
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Founded by ex-Google staff, Otto is reportedly working on an aftermarket solution to enable autonomous trucking. “That’s why our partnership with a great manufacturer like Volvo is important”, Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick said in a statement.
Otto, a 90-plus person startup company that focuses on self-driving trucks, will combine its efforts with Uber for personal transportation in the California cities of San Francisco and Palo Alto, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“By joining forces with Uber we can fast forward to the future”. He was also on Google’s self-driving auto team.
One of the more interesting developments of the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt is its use as a fully-autonomous taxi by GM in collaboration with ride-sharing company Lyft.
Uber had a compelling reason to build self-driving cars but it lacked the technical skills and the manufacturing capability to build them. “This alliance places Volvo at the heart of the current technological revolution in the automotive industry”, Hakan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars, was quoted as saying. The auto manufacturer claims that this is one of the most advanced vehicle architectures in the world and it is presently being used in the development of Volvo’s XC90 SUV, S90 premium sedan and V90 premium estate. It’s a clever agreement as Volvo will end up with an end buyer of the vehicles, Uber.
In detailed Bloomberg Businessweek report, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick revealed the company’s plan to introduce driverless cars, complete with “dozens of sensors that user cameras, lasers, radar, and Global Positioning System receivers” to it’s existing Pittsburg fleet.
The SPA makes sense, according to Volvo, it will “include all needed safety, redundancy, and new features required to have autonomous vehicles on the road”.
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In the aftermath, Uber has announced the acquisition of Otto, specialist software for autonomous vehicles.
