Later this month, Uber will make self-driving cars available to summon via their transportation service in Pittsburgh only. The new initiative makes Uber the first company to put driverless cars on the road for the public to use.
According to Bloomberg, the driverless vehicles offered by Uber are modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility cars. They will be accompanied by human supervisors for now. By the end of the year, Uber plans to have 100 of these specially modified Volvos on the road as part of its transportation service, and Uber is looking to partner with other automakers as well. Uber reportedly has no intention of producing its own vehicles as part of the initative, according to Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick.
Uber's self-driving Volvo via Bloomberg.
Rides in the Uber's driverless cars will be free at the beginning, but they also cannot be specifically requested — instead, they will deploy at random through the app's normal ride request function.
Even when the price goes up, Kalanick anticipates these driverless rides will end up cheaper than trips accompanied by a human driver.
How do you feel about self-driving cars? Would you step into a driverless Uber, or cancel the ride? Let us know in the comments!
Chloi Rad is an Associate Editor for IGN. Follow her on Twitter at @_chloi.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire