California says goodbye to Uber’s driverless cars

A co-founder of Otto, the self-driving trucking company acquired by Uber in 2016, has left the company according to CNBC.

A brief mention of the autonomous vehicle tests was made at the time in an Arizona Capitol Times that states, “self-driving cars are already being tested on Arizona roads”, but it made no mention of Uber.

Uber’s current permit in California expires March 31.

What’s more alarming is that the backup driver was not even looking at the road ahead when the collision occurred, bringing attention to the effectiveness of Uber’s human backup drivers.

The decision follows the fatal crash in Phoenix, in which 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk when the self-driving vehicle operated by Rafaela Vasquez hit Herzberg, who later died in a hospital. Waymo, on the other hand, submitted a 43-page safety report to the U.S. Department of Transportation in October, providing the most comprehensive look at the company’s efforts to train its cars to operate safety.

Early test vehicles used seven lidar sensors – which work similar to radar but use laser light rather than sound waves – as well as seven radar units and 20 cameras.

In a statement, they said: “We remain fully invested in and excited about the future of Uber Freight”. Raises questions that need to be answered.

Uber is still allowed to test on public roads in Pennsylvania and Ontario.

While we’re still awaiting the results of the investigation into last week’s fatal Uber crash, we’re left wondering who or what was at fault.

However, Ducey suspended Uber’s self-driving operations in the state indefinitely as of Monday evening.

One former Uber employee involved in testing both the Fusions and Volvo SUVs said that during a test run in late 2016, the Volvo failed to see a delivery truck’s tailgate lift that extended into the street, and the vehicle almost hit it going 35 miles-per-hour. Last week, Uber’s CEO tweeted “we’re thinking of the victim’s family”.

“Arizona welcomes Uber self-driving cars with open arms and wide open roads”, Ducey said then.

The Mercury News reported the driver died in a hospital Friday, the day of the crash.

LiDAR is a crucial component for autonomous driving systems, as it helps detect objects in a 360-degree circle around the vehicle.