By Katie Davis I n August, Uber’s customers in downtown Pittsburgh were able to summon self- driving cars from their smart phones. This represents an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved. Uber’s Pittsburgh fleet will have drivers behind the wheel of the modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicles during testing. Uber’s fleet of modified Volvo XC90 are outfitted with dozens of sensors that use cameras, lasers, radar, and GPS receivers. Volvo Cars has so far delivered a handful of vehicles out of a total of 100 due by the end of the year. The two companies signed a pact earlier this year to spend $300 million to develop a fully autonomous car that will be ready for the road by 2021. Uber has plans to partner with other automakers as it races to recruit more engi- neers. In July the company reached an agreement to buy Otto, a 91-employee driverless truck startup that was founded earlier this year and includes engineers from a number of high-profile tech companies attempting to bring driverless cars to market, including Google, Apple, and Tesla. What made Otto so attractive to Uber, well it had developed a kit that allows big-rig trucks to steer themselves on highways, in theory freeing up the driver to nap in the back of the cabin. The system is being tested on highways around San Francisco. Aspects of this technology will be incorporated and used to start an Uber-like service for long-haul trucking in the U.S., building on delivery services, like Uber Eats, that the company already offers.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS • SEPTEMBER 2016
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