Uber has become the first company to make self-driving cars publicly available in the United States through a test program in Pittsburgh.
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“That pilot really pushes the ball forward for us”, said Raffi Krikorian, director of Uber Advanced Technologies Centre in Pittsburgh, the company’s main facility for testing self-driving vehicles.
Uber has had its eye set on putting driverless cars on roads as early as 2014.
“Self-driving is core to Uber’s mission”, Anthony Levandowski, Uber’s vice president of engineering.
Meanwhile, according to commentators, the debut of robot cars should not come as a surprise, since Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick predicted in 2014 in an interview at the Code conference that the end of human drivers was eventually nigh. “We think it can make transportation cheaper and more accessible for the vast majority of people”. “We think it can help with congestion”.
While Volvo will play a significant role in Uber‘s transition to driverless cars, for now, users in Pittsburgh will ride in Ford Fusions that have been equipped with 20 cameras, antennas for GPS positioning, and a top-mounted lidar, which uses lasers to “see” around the vehicle and surroundings, according to Business Insider. Some are apprehensive about involving humans as passengers while removing them as drivers before the technology has been thoroughly tested. Before starting its self-driving auto project, the company operated its business by hiring drivers who would use their vehicles to provide ride-sharing services to commuters. “This technology needs to be ultra-reliable before we can take the human out of the driving equation”.
As for the driverless cars’ own safety record, company officials say that so far in Pittsburgh they haven’t had any accidents. The tests required two engineers to sit in the vehicle, one as a back-up driver and the other taking notes on the vehicle’s software. Uber’s landscape is the whole of Pittsburgh, a major U.S. city with very steep hills, old narrow streets and multiple bridges and highways built through the middle. When the drivers are removed from front seats, the cars will likely be restricted to driving in specific locations under good conditions at first.
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14, Uber has officially launched its driverless vehicle.
