According to media report, ridesharing major Uber has placed an order of 100,000 Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedans.
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Uber is having some problems with its drivers lately who are complaining about not being in control of the fare charges and some other issues they’re having with the ride sharing giant.
Nevertheless, Manager Magazin of Germany alleged on Friday that 100,000 Mercedes S-Classes were ordered by the upstart, but that was soon quashed by a source closely linked to Daimler. According to sources familiar with the matter, Uber has been shopping for self-driving cars and has now placed orders with the German carmaker.
Uber is no stranger to autonomous vehicles. For Uber – notorious for treating its workers poorly, as if they were excess, unwanted baggage only here by way of necessity – the end goal seems clear: a sentient fleet of Ubers, sans drivers (the company already has one, after all). Many German automakers, including Volkswagen’s Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW, are working on their own autonomous vehicles. Selling 100,000 S-Classes in one go is pretty insane – that’s about the number of S-Classes Mercedes managed to sell in a single year.
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The Mercedes Benz S-class has some autonomous features, but it isn’t fully self-driving just yet. Companies may be ready to launch autonomous cars by 2020 but analysts believe that these cars will not make their way to the roads until 2025 or 2030 due to government regulatory hurdles. The US state of Nevada passed a law in June 2011 to allow test drives of autonomous vehicles there. This deal reportedly has some conditions-chief among them being that Mercedes actually develops the tech by 2020-Uber also reportedly considered Tesla. Auto industry executives say regulators are likely to help pass legislation for self-driving cars if these help cut congestion and pollution. This means the company doesn’t own a fleet of vehicles for would-be drivers to use. Cab drivers are not particularly fond of Uber, though.
