Uber just launched self-driving taxis. They started rolling along the streets of Pittsburgh today.
i-e The world’s first Self-Driving Ubers are now on the road in the Steel City.
The launch of Uber’s self-driving pilot program marks the public unveiling of the company’s secretive work in autonomous vehicles and the first time self-driving cars have been so freely available to the U.S. public.
The aggressive San Francisco-based startup Uber has already shaken up the world’s taxi services, earning a valuation of $68 billion. It plans ultimately to replace many of its 1.5 million drivers with autonomous vehicles.
According to Reuter, there will be only four self-driving vehicles available to passengers, to start, and two people will sit in the front to take over driving when the car cannot steer itself.
During a sample ride of about one hour, Reuters observed the Uber car safely – and for the most part smoothly – stop at red lights and accelerate at green lights, travel over a bridge, move around a mail truck and slow for a driver opening a car door on a busy street. All without a person touching the controls.
According to Uber, this pilot is a big step forward. Real-world testing is critical to the success of this technology. And creating a viable alternative to individual car ownership is important to the future of cities.
And Uber says, Self-Driving taxis can reduce the number of traffic accidents, which today kill 1.3 million people a year, and it can free up the 20 percent of space in cities currently used to park the world’s billion plus cars; and cutting congestion, which wastes trillions of hours every year.
Hailing a self-driving Uber is still a lot like hailing a regular Uber at the moment, although it’s only available to Uber’s most “loyal” customers at first. If a self-driving car is available when one of these customers hail an UberX, they will be greeted by a car with close to two dozen cameras and sensors, along with one engineer and one “safety driver” in the front seats. Customers input their destination, the car drives itself there, with the safety driver only taking over if the system needs it to.
So, Uber drivers need not worry about losing their job immediately, anyway it will happen in near future. And, uber says that Technology also creates new work opportunities while disrupting existing ones. Many predicted that the ATM would spell doom for bank tellers. In fact, ATMs cut the cost of running a local bank so more branches opened, employing more people. Self-Driving Ubers will be on the road 24 hours a day, which means they will need a lot more human maintenance than cars today.
According to recode, it still may be more economical than paying drivers. Today, Uber pays drivers 65 to 80 percent of each fare, so for every dollar a driver brings in, Uber only takes home 20 to 35 cents. Eventually, when drivers are replaced by robot cars, Uber could capture close to 100 percent of the fare.
For example, if a driver performs 100 rides at $5 a ride, Uber will take home $100. With Uber’s new “drivers” — the robot cars — the company will take home close to $500.
The robot cars will also likely do those 100 rides in a shorter time, because it only has to stop to recharge or refuel. Self-driving cars can also be on the road non-stop potentially, racking up more fares in the same time, unlike human Uber drivers who are limited to driving 12 consecutive hours.
Uber’s Pittsburgh fleet consists of Ford Fusion cars outfitted with 3D cameras, global positioning systems (GPS) and a technology called lidar that uses lasers to assess the shape and distance of objects
News Sources:
https://newsroom.uber.com/pittsburgh-self-driving-uber/
http://www.recode.net/2016/9/14/12917436/uber-self-driving-cars-pittsburgh-drivers-cars
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-autonomous-idUSKCN11K12Y
