Uber is Going Live With Self-Driving Vehicles This Month [Video]

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Posted August 18, 2016 at 4:53pm by iClarified

Starting later this month, Uber customers in downtown Pittsburgh will be able to summon a self-driving car, reports Bloomberg.

This will be the first time a self-driving car-sharing service has been brought to market. Since the technology is still being developed, the fleet will be supervised by humans in the driver's seat for the time being.

Currently, Uber is using a specially modified Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle outfitted with cameras, lasers, radar, and GPS. Volvo is set to delivery 100 such vehicles to Uber by the end of the year. The two companies have signed a pact to spend $300 million to develop a fully autonomous car by 2021.

Uber is Going Live With Self-Driving Vehicles This Month [Video]

For now, Uber’s test cars travel with safety drivers, as common sense and the law dictate. These professionally trained engineers sit with their fingertips on the wheel, ready to take control if the car encounters an unexpected obstacle. A co-pilot, in the front passenger seat, takes notes on a laptop, and everything that happens is recorded by cameras inside and outside the car so that any glitches can be ironed out. Each car is also equipped with a tablet computer in the back seat, designed to tell riders that they’re in an autonomous car and to explain what’s happening.

“The goal is to wean us off of having drivers in the car, so we don’t want the public talking to our safety drivers,” Uber CEO Travis Krikorian says.

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unboricualoco - August 18, 2016 at 8:46pm

this sounds great in theory, but driving is something that requires a human brain and human sensibilities. too many things happen on the road for a computer to properly react to.

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quidamB - August 20, 2016 at 3:28pm

That's why you're not writing the code for this. "Rail travel at hight speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia" - Dr. Dionysys Larder, science writer and academic, 1828 "No balloon and no aeroplane will ever be practically successful." - Lord Kelvin, 1902 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943 "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States."– FCC Commissioner T.A.M. Craven, in 1961. "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer. 640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981 "Two years from now, spam will be solved." - Bill Gates, 2004 "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 2007