Uber Shutters Self-Driving Truck Business
- by Chuck Martin , July 31, 2018
Uber is closing its self-driving trucks business as it centers its autonomous development efforts on cars.
Uber recently re-started its autonomous car program in Pittsburgh, though running in manual mode with drivers, following the fatal accident in Arizona involving a self-driving Uber car that hit a pedestrian.
“We’ve decided to stop development on our self-driving truck program and move forward exclusively with cars,” said Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, in an email to the AI & IoT Daily. “We recently took the important step of returning to public roads in Pittsburgh, and as we look to continue that momentum, we believe having our entire team’s energy and expertise focused on this effort is the best path forward.”
Uber Freight, the freight logistics business, is not affected by the change, according to the company. Uber Freight started with three regions in 2017 and has since expanded nationwide.
Uber is expected to transfer employees from the self-driving truck unit to other self-driving technology work inside the company. Uber also plans to continue in-house development of LiDAR technology.
Uber’s self-driving trucks originated from Otto, a 90-person technology startup Uber acquired in 2016 for about $680 million.
Got a great tag line for them.
"We Otto not be doin' this wif Big twux"
“We recently took the important step of returning to public roads in Pittsburgh, and as welook to continue that momentum, we believe having our entire team’s energy and expertisefocused on this effort is the best path forward.”
Now that is a typical coporate -jargon-made-up-with-seamless-nonsense, if I ever read one.
Clever, Mark.
Glad to hear this info. I think this could be the best option that Uber takes if they really want to be one of the first to bring real self-driving cars to public, especially after what happened few months ago. I think we should wait quite a long time before we could try the real autonomous cars. I have just read at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accident-injury-lawyers-attorneys/ a little bit information regarding this technology. I think this might be useful for someone who are interested in this topic, especially the regulation and the legal side of these cars.
Tony, I appreciate the link for the Autonomous Chasers. These guys will make bank. The
weakness of the system will have continouous court cases. The hackers will be their best friends. Said this for 5 years now, "Dumbest idea of the 21st century" Still have not met a person, of any age, who will step foot in one of these remote controlled caskets.