The first self-driving Uber cars hit the road this week in
Pittsburgh, but until the technology advances, they will come along with safety
drivers to ensure “the ride goes smoothly.”
Uber, which has been working since 2014 to put self-driving
cars on the road and said in August it would pilot the program in Steel City,
said the vehicles have the potential to reduce the number of traffic accidents,
free up the 20% of space in cities used to park cars and cut congestion.
“Creating a viable alternative to individual car ownership
is important to the future of cities,” Uber vice president of self-driving
technology Anthony Levandowski and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a joint
statement.
Noting that self-driving technology is still very young, the
executives said that the cars still require human intervention “in many
conditions, including bad weather.”
“Even when these technology issues get fixed, we believe
ridesharing will be a mix — with services provided by both drivers and self-driving
Ubers,” they said. “This is because of the limits of self-driving software and
the skyrocketing demand for better transportation which people-powered
transport is uniquely able to solve.”
In response to
concerns that the cars will eliminate drivers and their jobs, Levandowski and
Kalanick said that technology “creates new work opportunities while disrupting
existing ones.”
“Self-driving Ubers will be on the road 24 hours a day,
which means they will need a lot more human maintenance than cars today,” they
stated.