Uber Beaks Into A New Market For Its Self-Driving Vehicles And May One Day Cut Down On Stress.

Picture from https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/ubers-self-driving-cars-start-picking-up-passengers-in-san-francisco/


Me, "Once again Uber is pushing the limits of its technology for self driving cars. It is getting the customers used to the idea, and building out the technology slowly but safely."

From article, "Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco"

(Uber’s self-driving cars are making the move to San Francisco, in a new expansion of its pilot project with autonomous vehicles that will see Volvo SUVs outfitted with sensors and supercomputers begin picking up passengers in the city.

The autonomous cars won’t operate completely driverless, for the time being – as in Pittsburgh, where Uber launched self-driving Ford Focus vehicles this fall, each SUV will have a safety driver and Uber test engineer onboard to handle manual driving when needed and monitor progress with the tests. But the cars will still be picking up ordinary passengers – any customers who request uberX using the standard consumer-facing mobile app are eligible for a ride in one of the new XC90s operated by Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group (ATG).)

Me, "Once again Uber has lifted the bar with another location to test its car. The difference being the environment the cars will drive in. The best way to test self driving cars is out on the open road. With Taxi hailings, you never know where your journey in the car will go so; it tests Uber's self-driving cars in real world conditions. 

And it seems there was a reason they picked Volvo for its introduction taxi car..."

Continuing from, article, (Uber didn’t pick a partner blindly – Sweeney says they found a company with a reputation for nearly a hundred years of solid engineering, manufacturing and a commitment to iterating improvement in those areas.)

Me, "Could it be that Volvo would be a safer car to use if the Self-driving car got into an accident or could it be Volvo's reputation as a leader in new safety technology which self-driving cars would bring?"

Continuing from article, (Uber’s pilot in San Francisco will be limited to the downtown area to start, and will involve “a handful” of vehicles to start, with the intent of ramping up from there according to the company. The autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh will also continue to run concurrently with the San Francisco deployment. Where Pittsburgh offers a range of weather conditions and other environmental variables for testing, San Francisco will provide new challenges for Uber’s self-driving tech, including denser, often more chaotic traffic, plus narrower lanes and roads.)

Me, "Well it should be interesting to watch how self driving tech takes off. I myself can't wait to let a car I am in drive itself. I am sure a lot of people will agree that driving is stressful. And who wants to be stressed? A side point to this technology is the Self-driving car could even lengthen our lifespan by reducing this stress."