Pittsburgh Is the First City to Have Self-Driving Cars From Uber

The American ride-sharing giant has announced that users can hail self-driving cars from Uber in "the Steel City." This marks a meaningful milestone for self-driving cars and Uber, as autonomous vehicles have not been available to the public in this form before.

In the case of Uber, the company has opened an Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh in at the beginning of 2015, which is a year and a half ago, and has now brought its first result on the street. According to Uber, “its most loyal Pittsburgh customers” will get to experience these cars first.

It is worth noting that the autonomous cars employed by Uber will still have a human at the wheel, but their presence is required if anything goes wrong with the self-driving system. Uber reminds everyone that this is a pilot project, but the human operator is there as a safety net, not as a driver per se.

Uber has already explained that inclement weather will probably call for the intervention of the human driver, but that is why the operator will be present in the vehicle and ready to drive at any moment. In the future, Uber plans to keep having humans in its ranks, as its service is more than just moving people around.

Furthermore, Uber says that these autonomous cars will bring an extension of their availability, which will then require more maintenance. The latter can only be performed by humans, which would also bring more jobs.

Moreover, Uber reminded everyone that some believed that ATMs would be the end of human bank tellers, but the latter category has expanded because the costs of opening a branch have been reduced, and more people were employed thanks to that move.

The self-driving cars from Uber will be available in Pittsburgh as UberX vehicles, so they will not be more expensive to use. The American company is visibly excited about this step in the direction of autonomous vehicles, and they say the public testing phase is “critical to the success” of the technology.

As you can perceive in the video below and the photo gallery, Uber has employed a modified Ford Fusion for the self-driving tasks in Pittsburgh. Some of you might remember that Uber has partnered with Volvo in the field of autonomous cars and ride-sharing services, but the agreement was signed recently, and could not have brought cars on the road for public testing.