Uber announced in December last year that it would start testing its self-driving cars in San Francisco. These autonomous cabs are powered by the self-driving technology that Uber itself has developed. The company is just using a Volvo SUV as a testbed while it continues to improve its self-driving technology. However, after running into some trouble with the State of California, Uber decided to take its self-driving cabs elsewhere.
Uber has started testing its self-driving cabs in Tempe, Arizona after it received permissions to test these cars from the state government. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey invited Uber to conduct its tests in his state after news of San Francisco banning Uber’s self-driving cars became public. Uber took him up on his offer.
The company first launched its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh back in August last year. The tests have been running there for a long time now and the company feels confident enough to expand it to additional cities across the country. Uber hasn’t confirmed what other cities it might expand the tests to over the coming months.
Uber users in Tempe who want to ride in a self-driving car just have to book an UberX and hope that they’re matched with a self-driving car. It’s completely random so there’s not much you can do but hope that you’re matched with one of these Volvo SUVs. Even though the cars are capable of driving themselves, your self-driving Uber is going to have a human driver behind the wheel at all time as well as an engineer in the front passenger seat.
Filed in . Read more about Self-Driving Cars and Uber. Source: bloomberg