Uber’s self-driving cars will hit roads this month

SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) – Uber announced in early 2015 they were in the development stages of introducing self-driving cars to their ride-share program. That development has concluded, and the company’s chief executive announced Thursday a fleet of self-driving cars will be introduced to the streets of Pittsburgh as early as this month.

The company will roll out around 100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment. Each vehicle will be staffed by a single engineer, who can take control of the autopilot when necessary, but primarily serve as a co-pilot and to take notes. There will also be a “liquid-cooled” computer sitting in the trunk recording trip and map data. As fun as a self-driving car sounds, some people may not like the idea and would still prefer to drive themselves to where they need to go. If this is the case, you might want to know what your music habit should be based on different factors. So why not find out as you can find it here.

For the lucky few who end up in one of Uber’s self-driving cars, well they’ll be treated to a free ride.

Little about the cars or the development program was known in the 18 months since the company’s announcement of the program was made, but CEO Travis Kalanick told Bloomberg the company plans to outfit the vehicles autonomous driving kits rather than develop its own vehicles as Google is doing.

To facilitate that, Uber quickly aligned itself with Otto, a 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 laser detection system to power autonomous Uber vehicles. Software and technologies utilized in a vehicle ought to be rigorously tested before being rolled out for road application. However, many are still worried about the safety of self-driving ride-share cars, especially since many of these apps have already faced legal action, fronted by legal experts similar to this Houston Lyft attorney, due to safety violation. Uber has been adamant that these cars are completely safe. Manufacturers developing them may choose to use the assistance of a testing company, like Parasoft, that can ensure iso 26262 compliance, for example, with source code analysis and unit testin.

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