Uber has some grand plans for self-driving cars, but before they can send a robot army to drive us, it needs to be tested. And now we know where they’ll be testing their robocars.
Uber announced a partnership with Volvo today that will see a self-driving vehicle test on the streets of Pittsburgh. Users won’t know if they’re getting a self-driving car until it picks them up, and they might not figure it out even then. The car will have a driver behind the wheel to take over in case of an accident, or if there’s a situation the car can’t deal with. You get a free ride in exchange for being one of Uber’s guinea pigs.
Why Pittsburgh? Carnegie Mellon University has one of the most advanced robotics labs in the country, and much of Uber’s self-driving car tech comes from that school’s graduates. So they chose a driving area they were familiar with, which is probably a good idea. As we’ve noted elsewhere, self-driving cars have been running into some pretty hard limits lately, and it’s clear the technology, at least in the sense of a fully autonomous car, is years and possibly even decades away.
That said, Ford is bidding to have a fully robotic car on the road by 2021, and it’s clear the race to get there first is on. We’ll see how Uber’s design works when it starts picking up passengers later this month.
(Via Bloomberg)
