Uber's Latest Move Into the World of Self-Driving Cars
What the ride-hailing service is testing in Arizona.
— -- Uber's latest move into the world of self-driving cars is taking the ride-hailing service to Arizona.
Partnering with the University of Arizona's College of Optical Science, Uber will focus on safety and mapping technology for driverless vehicles, company officials said. A fleet of automobiles with futuristic looking white contraptions affixed to their roofs will travel the roads in Tucson testing out the mapping technology.
"We’re still in the early days of what’s possible – and I look forward to working with Arizona to make the next step of that journey a reality," Brian McClendon, vice president of advanced technology for Uber said in a statement.
The announcement coincided with an executive order signed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday supporting the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles in Arizona.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has previously expressed a fascination with driverless technology and said at a conference last year that autonomous cars would drive down the cost of hailing a ride since customers would no longer have to pay for the driver, or as Kalanick put it, "the other dude in the car."
The San Francisco-based company has also been testing its self-driving technology working alongside researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
