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Uber-Feature

Cocky-driving cars could exist as fundamentally transformative to the American way of life every bit, well, cars. Only they've always felt like a pie-in-the-sky technology rather than a production that could be right around the proverbial corner. Today, they took a significant step closer to widespread introduction, courtesy of Uber and Volvo. Information technology's not the starting time time Uber has deployed self-driving cars, but bringing the technology to San Francisco, where Uber was founded, undoubtedly has particular meaning to the company.

While these are self-driving cars, they aren't driverless cars. Unlike Google, whose prototype self-driving vehicles lacked both pedals and steering, each self-driving car from Uber will feature both a exam engineer and a safety commuter to gather information, prevent emergency situations, and monitor the vehicle'south overall performance. Equally is typical with Uber, the visitor is risking running afoul of California'south strict laws regarding self-driving vehicles. The California DMV has informed Uber that information technology should apply for certification that would let it to drive on public roads and has awarded such certifications to 20 companies to date. Uber, in response, claims that its vehicles aren't technically autonomous, since a driver is always present.

Unlike Apple and Google, both of which have reportedly trimmed their self-driving programs to focus on software rather than vehicle development, Uber signed a prominent partnership with Volvo to buy 100 vehicles modified for autonomous driving. Volvo agreed to sell Uber 100 XC90 SUVs, which is what the company is using for this cocky-driving launch. The auto manufacturer is working on its own in-house self-driving technology, merely Uber's vehicles are using their own software, not Volvo's.

The engineering in the newer Volvos is more streamlined and better integrated than the self-driving Ford Focuses (Ford Foci?) that Uber launched in Pittsburgh a few months dorsum, The Verge reports. There are just seven cameras, down from 22, and the radar sensors are installed behind the bumper rather than off the sides of the car. You can all the same conspicuously tell this isn't a standard vehicle (the photo below is proof of that), but apart from the spinning lidar dish things don't look likewise unusual. The lidar array provides a 360-degree laser scan of the surround in addition to the sensors mounted at various points on the vehicle.

Volvo Cars and Uber join forces to develop autonomous driving ca

The other major deviation between the Pittsburgh launch earlier this year and this San Francisco debut is that you've got a much amend gamble of catching a ride. In Pittsburgh, Uber only made its cocky-driving cars available to a pocket-size group of people. If you're in SF, you might get lucky simply by using the standard Uber app. Uber will inform you if a self-driving vehicle has been sent to your location and yous'll have the option to asking a human commuter instead, at least for now.

That "at least for now," is important, particularly to anyone who actually thought Uber constituted a long-term employment opportunity. Self-driving vehicles could reinvent modern transportation by creating an on-demand network for conveyance. Information technology'due south even possible, in the long-term, that they'll obviate the need to ain a car (every bit opposed to owning i for fun). But there are going to be definite winners and losers to this technology, and once costs drop depression enough information technology's going to accept a hefty whack out of the transportation business. It may non impale taxis or higher-tier black-automobile service outright, but it'southward definitely going to put severe pressure on the market place — and Uber has no reason to go on hiring drivers once its vehicles are capable enough to have their place. Trucking isn't safety, either — not with trucks already demonstrating some short-booty autonomous capability.