Experts have now admitted, the challenge for autonomous vehicles is greater than first expected, as Uber gives up and parks its plans for robot-minicabs.
In the past few years, numerous Silicon Valley luminaries, ride-hailing apps, politicians and leading cab firms have said that by 2021, self-driving vehicles would be crisscrossing the US, rolling along the highways of Britain, delivering robotic private hire cars in London.
However, the 1st January has not brought a driverless revolution.
In reality, the final weeks of 2020, saw Uber, one of the biggest players and suspected recipients, agreed to park its plans for self-driving cabs, selling its autonomous division to Aurora in an arrangement worth around $4 billion (£3 billion) – around half of what it was worth in 2019.
The decision does not mean that the company no longer believes in self-driving cars, the Uber CEO reiterated.
”Few technologies hold as much promise for improving people’s lives with safe, accessible and environmentally friendly transportation,” he said.
But more people, will take this statement with a pinch of salt now.
A transport consultant who has led self-driving car experiments in the UK, Prof. Nick Reed, says, “The outlook has changed since 2015, when the hype probably peaked.”
The problems and complexities are becoming clearer and clearer.
Automated driving, Reed says, could still take place in the next five years on highways with clearly defined lanes, restricted to motorized cars all heading in the same direction.
Widespread usage is still a very long way off in cities, he says: “But the benefits are still there.”
Robotic taxis and Private Hire cars, have also stalled elsewhere.
Uber, minicab firm Addison Lee had ambitious plans and signed an agreement with British autonomy pioneer Oxbotica in 2018 to bring robot-cars to London by 2021.
The deal was quietly dropped under new ownership last March.
“Driverless cars are best left to OEMs [manufacturers]and they are not part of our current plans.” Addison Lee CEO Liam Griffin said.
There were massive concerns after Uber’s self-driving car killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018.
In practise autonomous cars are not legal on our streets and motorways without a safety driver being present on board, which basically makes the whole concept ridiculous.
TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT:
While this is good news for the general public, it is actually bad news for lone traveling young female Uber customers.
A recent FOI showed that 50 young ladies were subjected to sexual assault (including rape) by their drivers last year.
No comments:
Post a Comment