Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: Uber’s first self-driving cars will start picking up passengers this month

  1. #1

    Uber’s first self-driving cars will start picking up passengers this month

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/ub...rs-this-month/

    Aug 18, 2016

    It’s been a while since news broke in early 2015 that Uber was working on self-driving cars. Earlier this year, the company openly admitted it was testing cars in Pittsburgh, but we haven’t heard much more over the last 18 months.

    With Google, the self-driving car leader, slowly making progress with its autonomous cars, you’d be forgiven for thinking Uber’s efforts are far behind and barely visible in its frenemy‘s rearview mirror.

    Well think again!

    It turns out Uber has been making very rapid progress on its plan to replace its one million-plus drivers with computers. Bad news if you’re an Uber driver…

    In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Travis Kalanick revealed that the company is preparing to add self-driving cars to its fleet of active drivers in Pittsburgh as soon as this month.

    The company will deploy around 100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment. Each vehicle will be staffed by one engineer, who can take the wheel as/when needed, and a co-pilot to observe and take notes. There will also be a “liquid-cooled” computer sitting in the trunk recording trip and map data.

    That will mean that regular Uber punters in the city have a chance of getting an autonomous vehicle for their ride — their trip will be free if so.
    Precious little was known of Uber’s plans for self-driving cars, but the company told Bloomberg that it will outfit cars with autonomous driving kits rather than develop its own vehicles as Google is doing.

    To do that, Uber has quietly snapped up Otto, a promising startup that launched this year to bring self-driving technology to trucks. Otto’s technology can be fitted to existing trucks, and, according to Bloomberg, the technology will be adapted to create a lidar — laser detection — system to power autonomous Uber vehicles.

    The Otto acquisition is hugely notable, not only for the technology but the personnel involved.

    The company was founded by former Googlers Anthony Levandowski, Lior Ron, Don Burnette, and Claire Delaunay. Levandowski led Google’s self-driving car efforts, Ron was an executive on Google Maps and Motorola, while other staff have spent time with Apple, Tesla and other notable automotive firms.

    The deal is set to close as soon as this month, after which Levandowski will lead Uber’s driverless car efforts. In addition, two new R&D centers will open up to speed the technology’s development.

    “We were really excited about building something that could be launched early,” Levandowski told Bloomberg of why he left Google.

    His additional comments — which include calling Kalanick a “brother from another mother” — hint at frustrations with the slow speed of development from Google’s self-driving project. Uber, it seems, is more willing to move forward with self-driving at a faster pace.

    Time will tell how that plays out, but we’ll get our first glimpse soon enough.



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2

  4. #3
    When I was based in a remote assignment in Korea, we owned beater cars and played chicken, etc.

    I think we should do that with these self driving cars.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    When I was based in a remote assignment in Korea, we owned beater cars and played chicken, etc.

    I think we should do that with these self driving cars.
    I never had a car in Korea but I lived at a bar , rented a room upstairs .

  6. #5
    “We were really excited about building something that could be launched early,” Levandowski told Bloomberg of why he left Google.
    I won't be in it when one gets launched.
    "The Patriarch"

  7. #6
    "Murica

    Uber's Otto hauls Budweiser across Colorado in self-driving truck;

    In the first real-world commercial use of autonomous trucking, some 45,000 cans of Budweiser beer arrived late last week to a warehouse after traveling over 120 highway miles in a self-driving truck with no driver at the wheel, executives from Uber [UBER.UL] and Anheuser-Busch (ABI.BR) said.

    Otto, the self-driving truck subsidiary of Uber, shipped a truckload of Budweiser from Fort Collins, Colorado to Colorado Springs last Thursday with the driver monitoring from the truck's sleeper berth for the entire two-hour journey, Otto's co-founder Lior Ron and Anheuser-Busch's senior director of logistics strategy, James Sembrot, told Reuters on Friday.

    The early morning drive at an average speed of 55mph (89 kph) marks what the two executives said was the first revenue generating load transported via autonomous truck. Otto was paid the market rate of $470 for the job using one of its trucks outfitted with the new technology.

    Otto and Anheuser-Busch enlisted the support of the state of Colorado before the drive, and the state patrol monitored it, although Colorado and most other U.S. states do not expressly prohibit self-driving trucks.
    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN12P13N

    Uber’s Self-Driving Truck Makes Its First Delivery: 50,000 Beers



    WALT MARTIN IS kneeling, legs folded behind him, butt resting on his heels. “I’ve got to practice my yoga,” he says, clearly joking. Never mind that we’re in the cab of an 18-wheeler cruising through Colorado at 55 mph and Martin was, until a moment ago, the guy at the wheel.

    Maybe he was feeling cocky. After all the truck, outfitted with $30,000 worth of hardware and software from San Francisco startup Otto, had just hours before made the world’s first autonomous truck delivery. You’d think so momentous an occasion would have involved something more glamorous than 50,000 cans of Budweiser, but there it is.

    The drive was as mundane as the beer in the trailer. At 12:30 am, after leaving the brewery in Fort Collins and merging onto Interstate 25, an Otto driver punched a switch labeled “engage,” and, once sure autonomous mode had, in fact, engaged, climbed out of his seat. He buckled the safety belt behind him, to keep the warning chime from driving him crazy as the truck trundled 120 miles south to Colorado Springs.

    Don’t worry. Otto, which Uber bought last summer for roughly $680 million, doesn’t want to put Martin or anyone else out of work... (uh huh....)
    https://www.wired.com/2016/10/ubers-...y-50000-beers/

  8. #7
    There is a great potential for abuse with autonomous cars/trucks, but history tells us the displacement of a certain skillset by technology only opens doors for the future.

    John Henry comes to mind. How many here know of the steel drivin' man?




    After all the accidental deaths occur as a result of the autonomous car development, I worry about the government hijacking of private vehicles to "preserve the flow of traffic", or the hacking of private vehicles for mischief/ransom.

    Most advocates of autonomous car technology have an "omelet" outlook on life, looking at such deaths as "just a few eggs".

    What I'm not worried about are truckers finding other occupations. Will it hurt at first, absolutely, but they will find other productive things to do with new skillsets.

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"





Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •