Uber Lays Off 300 Arizona Workers From Autonomous Car Program After Fatal Crash
Uber has closed its autonomous car program in Arizona months after a fatal crash happened there, laying off 300 workers in the process.
In March, Elaine Herzberg, 49, was killed while walking across the road with her bicycle. She was struck by one of Uber’s self-driving Volvo XC90s, which had an engineer behind the wheel at the time.
In the wake of the incident, Uber paused all its autonomous driving programs, but Jalopnik reports that the company will resume its testing in Pittsburgh once a federal investigation into the crash is completed.
In a statement, Uber said: “We’re committed to self-driving technology, and we look forward to returning to public roads in the near future. In the meantime, we remain focused on our top-to-bottom safety review, having brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture.”
Uber’s Arizona self-driving program started in 2016. At the time, Governer Doug Ducey welcomed the testing, saying he wanted to remove “bureaucracy and more regulation” from advancing the technology. However, following the crash he suspended Uber from continuing its program, calling footage of the fatal incident “disturbing and alarming”.
Comments
Self driving cars were invented ages ago.
They’re called taxis.
That Jeremy Clarkson quote man😂😂
Not surprised to be honest
Hang on, why fire People?
I get it may need to Sustain money after a prodable loss in shares, but won’t this make it even worse
And it’s not like they’re shutting down your Self driving division, as theyre still plan on testing in Pittsburgh……. So I’m quite confused
But on the plus side, what a time to buy Uber stock
Because they’ve shut down their Arianna branch?
Self driving cars is not a thing yet. We seem to rush to thing like “Oooh, the future is now, AI will take over, in 2020 everyone will drive electric cars” and just just want to say “shut up!” We’re way away from thoose types of technologies, We’re trying to change society faster than we can adapt to current things.
Exactly. In the 50s, everyone thought that nuclear fusion was the future. It’s always been 30 years away and still is. Experts range in their predictions, but of course the media stirs up hype by reporting the fastest prediction
They should kick out a worker who turned off Volvo safety sistems!! Volvo cameras and sensors detected cyclist 1 sec before crash.
I think they did that to test their own system.
Uber just wants to “push with self driving technologies” to no longer have the need to employ the little man to drive the car.
All about profits they don’t give a little winnie about anything else.
Uber: making a sh¡tty alternative to the Taxi since 2012.
Skynet is starting to take over