Ever thought of a car driven by a machine? Want to get around the city without the hassle of driving or parking? If you ever thought it would just be a dream, here is a surprise from Uber.
Uber is planning to roll out its first self-driving cars in the heart of Steel City, Pittsburgh.
Uber just announced that self-driving cars started picking up passengers in late August. Uber customers in downtown Pittsburgh will be able to hire and ride into specially modified Ford focuses and VolvoXC90 sport-utility vehicles strapped with dozens of sensors, cameras, lasers and GPS components. The cars won’t be completely robotized — An Uber employee will be at the wheel in case things go wrong to supervise matters and take control if necessary if things go wrong.
If Uber follows through, the Pittsburgh experiment will be the first driverless car-sharing service to come to market. Uber is partnering with Volvo on the initiative, and the two companies plan to have around 100 self-driving vehicles on the street by the end of the year.
“Uber is accelerating its plan to replace its 1 million human drivers with robots as quickly as possible,” Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said.
For its initial Pittsburgh run, Uber said it will select existing customers to volunteer for the self-driving service, though it has not specified how many. It did not say how many cars will be in the self-driving fleet, nor when or where the service might be expanded. For the time being, the rides will be free.
Uber has a self-driving research lab in Pittsburgh, home to Carnegie Mellon University, one of the world’s top robot and artificial intelligence research centers.
For more information, please visit: www.uber.com.