Uber To Offer Rides In Self-Driving Cars Starting Now
Uber just became the first company to start undertaking public trials as it offers self-driving cars to its customers in Pittsburgh at the end of this month. It is a huge deal. It also signals the speed at which the whole self-driving industry is moving at.
Think back a decade and the very notion of having self-driving cars the roads in our lifetime seemed ludicrous. It was straight out of science fiction and when Google announced its intentions to build such a car, most of us thought that the search giant was about to burn a few million dollars on another one of its moonshots.
In a short span, though, this idea has gone from being a dream to a certainty. The current generation will definitely see the emergence and deployment of self-driving cars in large numbers.
Uber is still considered a ‘start-up’ even though it is worth billions of dollars. The company’s tagline said that it wanted to be everyone’s private driver not too long back and now it wants to make the very job of a driver redundant.
It is easy to see why Uber is keen for self-driving cars to get on the roads. By taking the driver out of the equation, Uber can lower costs even further, get rid of the hassle of dealing with unions, eliminate any commissions it pays out and challenge the notion of car ownership even further.
Yes, in the end, all car owners would be aware of the fact, that by adopting self-driving cars and building true Level 4 autonomous capabilities, they are signaling an end of their current business model. Why would anyone want to own a car and pay for insurance, fuel, and repairs when they can have a car at their doorstep whenever they need?
Also, they can have the type of car they want under any given situation. Of course, the transition period during which self-driving cars will be driving around a majority of human driven cars will undoubtedly throw up some huge and unforeseen challenges.
It is unclear how the public will respond to a fatality caused by a failure of AI. On the evidence of the Tesla Autopilot case, the fallout is going to be extreme.
Uber is testing out self-driving cars to the public just to find out more about these unknowns. The cars will be modified Volvo’s which will always have a driver behind the wheel to take charge in case of an emergency.
Another person, the co-pilot, will be taking notes throughout the entire process to ensure that the driver can concentrate fully on not driving! Passengers will be provided a tablet with information about the program they are participating in and the rides will be free of charge.
Uber has also disclosed that it has a deal with Volvo worth $300 million in which the car company will provide Uber with self-driving cars by 2021. This is the same milestone Ford has set for itself and seems to be turning out to be an inflection point of sorts by which hopefully we would have sorted out some of the regulations around the running of these cars.
