Uber to begin real-world use of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh this month
Marking a small but significant step towards bringing self-driving technology to the public, Uber will later this month begin offering some Pittsburgh customers rides in specially-modified Volvo XC90s, a report revealed on Thursday.
An Uber engineer will still sit in the driver's seat, and occasionally be prompted to take over in riskier situations like bridges, according to Bloomberg. A copilot in the passenger seat will take notes, and cameras inside and outside of the vehicle will record each trip.
Riders may not know they're getting into self-driving vehicles until they actually appear, but those trips will be free, and a tablet in the rear seat will explain what's going on. Uber is in fact hoping to discourage riders from talking to the XC90 drivers, in a bid to get people used to the idea of a driverless car.
While still a test in many senses, Uber's rollout is effectively the first public launch of fully self-driving car technology. Companies like Google have conducted road tests, but not as part of a commercial service.
Uber has expressed a strong desire to adopt self-driving vehicles as soon as possible. Doing so will allow it to dramatically cut its biggest expense -- human workers, who need to be paid a reasonable wage.
Ford is also planning to enter fully-automated ridesharing and ride-hailing, but only in 2021. Tesla has suggested that once it achieves the same level of technology, owners of its cars may be able to offer them up for ridesharing, making their money back.
Apple could potentially go down a similar route when its own car arrives in 2021. While it's unlikely to launch its own service, the company recently invested $1 billion into Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, and it might be easier to sell high-priced first-generation vehicles to other businesses than a general audience.
An Uber engineer will still sit in the driver's seat, and occasionally be prompted to take over in riskier situations like bridges, according to Bloomberg. A copilot in the passenger seat will take notes, and cameras inside and outside of the vehicle will record each trip.
Riders may not know they're getting into self-driving vehicles until they actually appear, but those trips will be free, and a tablet in the rear seat will explain what's going on. Uber is in fact hoping to discourage riders from talking to the XC90 drivers, in a bid to get people used to the idea of a driverless car.
While still a test in many senses, Uber's rollout is effectively the first public launch of fully self-driving car technology. Companies like Google have conducted road tests, but not as part of a commercial service.
Uber has expressed a strong desire to adopt self-driving vehicles as soon as possible. Doing so will allow it to dramatically cut its biggest expense -- human workers, who need to be paid a reasonable wage.
Ford is also planning to enter fully-automated ridesharing and ride-hailing, but only in 2021. Tesla has suggested that once it achieves the same level of technology, owners of its cars may be able to offer them up for ridesharing, making their money back.
Apple could potentially go down a similar route when its own car arrives in 2021. While it's unlikely to launch its own service, the company recently invested $1 billion into Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, and it might be easier to sell high-priced first-generation vehicles to other businesses than a general audience.
Comments
Fucking disgrace.
Uber created an amazing job opportunity in the US and the only they are working on is how get rid of that rake in some more profit instead.
and this was not completely obvious from the start. The reason Uber can not make a profits is they pay out all the profits to the drivers. But drivers do not make all that much after expenses. Uber hopes the self driving car will run 24/7, but it can auto refuel and do you think your local gas station will pump their gas or hook up the cord.
Personally, I'm not a fan of Uber for a great number of ethical reasons, but I do applaud their efforts in 1) destroying those gov't sanctioned control, and 2) bringing public transportation options to rural areas.
But don't kid yourself in thinking their goal was charitable. They are a for-profit company, which they prove daily with their abusive tactics towards customers, employees/independent contractors, and would-be competitors. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp may be dicks, but they were smart enough to see an opportunity in the market with emerging technologies, and have the experience and fortitude to exploit it.
Wake me up when Apple has a revolutionary navigation system Apple Maps' Coherent Navigation, advanced street level 3D mapping and 3D computer vision, machine learning etc...
I know this will offend a lot of folks here but a more relevant story would be the lack of innovation coming out of Cupertino the last year or so and how that reflects on management that has been paid top dollar. The efforts and results of Tim and Jony's 115,000 minions have been absent for far too long and it's upsetting...not just to Wall Street.
And I'm not so sure that self-driving cars actually will be safer and even if they were, I don't see Americans in particular accepting them. I have no faith in an industry that releases products with tons of bugs and thinks nothing of it. When my browser slows down because Flash is doing something stupid, I can go into a panel and eliminate Flash from running, but if my car slows down, it can lead to death. We've already had at least one Tesla death, although that seems to have been the driver's fault. But when there are more deaths from automated cars, even if the rate is far less than from conventional vehicles, people and politicians are going to freak out and such cars are going to be banned in numerous locales.
One of the reasons why Americans (outside of a few older city centers) don't use mass transit is because the American macho man wants to be independent and "in control", even if that means sitting in endless traffic jams. Also, I would assume that self-driving cars won't permit drivers to break driving laws and therefore won't drive over the speed limit. I can't see most American drivers accepting that.
While I do believe we have to move ahead technologically and can't preserve obsolete jobs, especially those that endanger the environment, when every company desires to eliminate as much labor as possible and there are few jobs for workers, especially those without special skills, we have a society where very few can afford to purchase the products and services of those very companies. It's a suicide plan for corporate America, but each company only cares about its own profits. So Uber figures that those laid-off drivers would have never spent money on Uber anyway so they don't care. But when other companies lay off their people because they've implemented more automation, those people won't be using Uber either. CEO's only care about the next quarter, but if they looked at the long term, they'd realize that unless they make things better for workers, they're actually in a death spiral (unless you're a company who only sells to the rich).
Uber's goal is to get people from point A to B. That's it. In the near future, driver-less cars will be the most efficient means of doing so. It's remarkable that people bitch about how much others make.
2) Americas will adopt because the older generations have a tendency to die off before the younger generations. This is no different than the argument against the personal computer and many other advances in technology. I seem to recall Jobs having a quote in line with my first sentence in this point.
3) This is not an "all or nothing" scenario which, unfortunately, is how most people perceive how technology gets adopted when trying to look ahead. The highways are the ideal starting points for self-driving and driver-less vehicles (the latter is a subset of the former). Nearly 100% reduced foot traffic, steady movement (often with dividers for directions), and where drivers tend to experience white line fever (or fall asleep altogether) are just some of the obvious reasons why long-distance driving is an ideal way to perfect the technologies needed for self-driving vehicles. Moving even further into safety, we already have the ability to isolate lanes of traffic on a given highway for HOV or public transportation traffic, for more condensed, urban highways, which would be ideal for passing laws in self-driving states, where necessary, and then expand outward as demand increases.
By the way, Taxi companies rely heavily on governments for monopoly privileges. That's why they're able to be so profitably.