A photo illustration shows the Uber app logo displayed on a mobile telephone, as it is held up for a posed photograph in central London, Britain August 17, 2016.
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The XC90s sold to Uber will not feature any advanced self-driving technology from Volvo, but will instead be outfitted with technology self-developed by Uber.
If its ambitions are realized, these vehicles could over time reduce its biggest cost, paying drivers. Otto’s current shareholders will also be entitled to 20 percent of the profits of any self-driving trucking business the company is able to build over time.
The CEO looks at the Otto acquisition as a natural step toward the delivery of self-driving technology that it could license to auto manufacturers.
“To do it well is incredibly hard, as I realized on my first visit to a auto manufacturing plant several years ago”.
Starting later this month, it will allow Uber customers in downtown Pittsburgh, Pa.to summon self-driving cars from their phones.
There is no question that self-driving cars offer the promise of a safer future, but as Google has learned the hard way the problem isn’t so much that autonomous vehicles aren’t safe versus humans can be highly unpredictable.
Over the past year, Uber has poached hundreds of former Google employees and has created a research facility in Pittsburgh dedicated to autonomous driving technology.
Recently, that valuation was about US$68 billion, placing the value of the deal at about US$680 million.
“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”.
For now, Uber’s self-driving cars will include an Uber employee who sits behind the wheel and monitors the self-driving auto.
In taking over the 90-person Otto, Uber said that Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski will now lead Uber’s efforts to develop self-driving technology for personal driving, delivery and trucking. The investment will be roughly shared equally by the two companies.
The “partnership is crucial to our self-driving strategy because Uber has no experience making cars”, Kalanick says. A handful of self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs will be deployed as part of the pilot program later this month, with 100 expected by the end of the year.
So far Otto has tested self-driving trucks for highway use only. It is a world leader in the development of active safety and autonomous drive technology and possesses an unrivaled safety credibility.
The decision is a blow to Uber in its long battle with drivers, many of whom have argued that the type of control Uber exerts over them constitutes conditions of employment.
These recent moves signal Uber’s desire to take human drivers out of its business equation entirely.
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.
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Uber began road testing its vehicles in Pittsburg in May.
