This Hybrid Ford Fusion Drives Itself...Literally
The proposal is already being tested in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where four Ford Fusion hybrids they walk around without a driver, taking the most loyal Uber users from one place to another. Of course, the rides are not as lonely as it seems: an engineer and an employee of the company also get into the car to avoid greater evils (remember the Google vehicle that caused an accident a few months ago?)
The city, with around 300,000 inhabitants, has been selected by the company to host the Carnegie Mellon University, one of the main research centers in this technology. Likewise, its geographical peculiarities have also played an important asset, with mountains, bridges and unstable weather, which makes it a very complete testing ground.
According to ABC, Travis Kalanick, co-founder of the company, expressed in a statement that "Road tests are crucial to the success of this technology" , as well as "creating a viable alternative to owning a car, which is important for The future of cities".
The objective of this strategy is replace the more than 1.5 million Uber drivers (precisely, those that have driven the company) by automatic cars. "I think the most important thing that computers are going to do in the next ten years is drive cars ", said according to ABC, Anthony Levandowski, leader of the department of autonomous vehicles of the company.
The firm, which is making these first journeys free of charge, hopes offer trips to the airport in months , and within a year, cover the entire Pittsburgh metropolitan area.