Uber debuts self-driving vehicles in
landmark Pittsburgh trial
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[September 14, 2016]
By Heather Somerville
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - When Pittsburgh
wakes up on Wednesday morning, some residents will have the choice of
going about their day in an Uber that drives itself.
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.
More than two years ago Uber - like most in the car business -
identified autonomous driving technology as the springboard for the next
stage of growth.
The aggressive San Francisco-based startup 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.
But it is not as if robots are taking over the Steel City. 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.
Uber provided ride-alongs to reporters on Tuesday. During a 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.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Sep/14/images/ads/current/christian_village_sda_031616.png)
But the Uber driver and the engineer in the front two seats did
intervene every few miles.
Since opening its Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh last year,
San Francisco-based Uber has moved quickly, hiring away some 40 faculty
and researchers from Carnegie Mellon University - a move that ruffled
feathers locally - and forming partnerships with automakers including
Volvo.
But the company is competing in a crowded field. From Alphabet Inc
<GOOGL.O> and Baidu Inc <BIDU.O> to Tesla Motors Inc <TSLA.O> and
General Motors Co <GM.N>, technology companies and automakers are
hustling to build autonomous vehicles and develop new business plans for
what is expected to be a long-term makeover of personal transportation.
By integrating self-driving cars with its ride-services app, Uber may be
the first introduction to autonomous cars that many people will have.
“If Uber scores a home run with this it's going to be wonderful for the
planet," said Andrew Moore, dean of the School of Computer Science at
Carnegie Mellon. "The reason is we will see a much safer world and much
more efficient world where we have to use less energy to move people
around."
Still, Moore said at least another decade of research and development is
needed before there would be a significant number of truly autonomous
cars on the road. Industry executives remain sharply divided on the
timeline, with some expecting fully autonomous cars within five years
and others predicting they are still decades away.
“I don’t think that Uber by any means has it in the bag,” Moore said.
A DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND
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, mounted
somewhat crudely to the vehicle's roof. The company is also outfitting
Volvo SUVs that will be added to the fleet.
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![](../images/091416pics/news_b3.jpg)
Uber's Volvo XC90 self driving car is shown during a demonstration
of self-driving automotive technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
U.S. September 13, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk
![](../images/ads/current/richardson_lda_090916.png)
The cars do drive themselves, but during Reuters' ride-along, the
Uber driver in the front seat took control, according to company
protocol, to allow pedestrians to cross the street, maneuver through
a construction zone and make a left turn across traffic at an
intersection. An Uber engineer sat in the passenger seat,
occasionally adjusting the speed of the car, which mostly drove
slowly.
While autonomous driving on highways is relatively easy - Carnegie
Mellon researchers built a minivan that in 1995 drove itself across
the country and remained in autonomous mode about 98 percent of the
time - city streets, with their traffic, pedestrians, potholes and
construction, are a different matter.
"Since the mid-90s pretty much this entire field has been focused on
doing that last step," said Aaron Steinfeld, associate research
professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon.
Pittsburgh in particular poses challenges. The city is full of steep
and narrow streets, potholes, tunnels and more than 440 bridges. It
has snow and ice in the winter, blossoming trees that can hide
street signs and traffic signals in the spring, blinding sun in the
summer and a slippery ground cover of fallen leaves in the autumn.
"We really feel that Pittsburgh is the double black diamond of
driving," said Raffi Krikorian, director of Uber's Advanced
Technologies Center.
Pittsburgh also offers Uber a welcoming mayor and city leadership,
who have rolled out the red carpet for Uber and a state law that
allows for autonomous cars, as long as someone is behind the wheel
to take over if needed.
Among the residents, there are mixed responses. On the ride-along,
some stared at the autonomous car with mouth-gaping awe; another
gave the car the middle finger.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Sep/14/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_051513.png)
Others, like Robert Armitage, 55 and a lifelong resident of
Pittsburgh, are excited for his city - but skeptical of Uber's
ambitions.
"I am absolutely skeptical as to whether they can pull it off in the
winter, he said. "Pittsburgh is awfully far north for this kind of
experiment."
(Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Bill
Rigby)
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