Uber to use autonomous cars to haul people in next few weeks

In addition to the recent move by Uber to launch driverless cars in Pittsburgh later this month, major dollars are flowing toward connecting vehicles with other systems as well.

The new base vehicle will be developed on Volvo Cars’ fully modular Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) which underpins the Volvo XC90, S90 and V90. Its founders, Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron, also worked respectively in the past on projects without Google Car driver Car and Google Maps mapping. If so, your ride will be free of charge. The companies say they could have autonomous vehicles in production by 2021. “We’ve got to be laser-focused on getting this to market, because it’s not a side project for us”.

Without drivers, the cost of hailing a ride will be cheaper than owning a auto, changing the way we all get around, Kalanick has said. Volvo and Uber are teaming up to develop technology that would bring fully autonomous driverless cars to the Uber ride-sharing program. Current Otto employees would get a fifth of profits Uber earns from a self-driving trucking business.

General Motors Co. invested $500 million in Uber rival Lyft Inc. earlier this year.

Kalanik, in a Thursday interview with The Associated Press, said development of autonomous cars is paramount for the 7-year-old San Francisco-based company. Uber has had a self-driving test auto operating in Pittsburgh for several months; it has probably put together a “good enough” map of the area to move on to this larger trial.

This appears to be a sign that Uber is serious about competing against major players like Google and Apple in the race toward realizing, and ultimately commercializing, driverless vehicles.

The value of the acquisition was undisclosed but Kalanick said Uber now has “one of the strongest autonomous engineering groups in the world”.

Walker Smith predicted that drivers often will have to intervene in Pittsburgh, with its winding, hilly roads and vast number of bridges.

Uber is apparently shelling out a staggering $680 million to buy Otto. The company was recently illustrated by the announcement of an autonomous driving system for trucks only.

“We will be carefully reviewing that based on our commitment to safeguarding the travelling public”, he told AFP.

Later this month Uber customers in downtown Pittsburgh will be able to summon self-driving Ubers, according to Bloomberg, which was first to report the news.

“I’d be willing to try it as long as there’s a real human there to hit the brakes, you know, if the thing goes belly-up”, he said.

It turns out Uber has been making very rapid progress on its plan to replace its one million-plus drivers with computers.

Uber had previously used modified Ford Fusions to test its self-driving tech. But he thinks they will all adopt the same risk-management approach as Uber. This is the first time autonomous auto sharing service will be available for general public.

Meanwhile, Uber is launching autonomous vehicles commercially – far before anyone thought it would be possible to do so. The company will run an experiment in Pittsburgh, rolling out the first-ever self-driving fleet that’s available to everyday customers. He then added that whichever company can develop this technology will have a unique edge over competitors.