About a week ago, Uber announced that they would begin trialing their self-driving cars in San Francisco. It was a great idea and a great way to push self-driving technology onto the masses, but unfortunately California’s regulators weren’t thrilled and ordered Uber to halt the program, although for a while it seems that it fell on deaf ears, or at least until now.Uber has since announced that they will be halting their self-driving program in San Francisco after the California DMV revoked the registration of the 16 test vehicles the company used as part of the pilot. What this means is that with the registration revoked, these cars would have been illegal to be driven on the road.
According to an Uber spokesperson, “We’re now looking at where we can redeploy these cars but remain 100 percent committed to California and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules.” When asked what they planned to do next, the spokesperson said, “We are open to having the conversation about applying for a permit, but Uber does not have plans to do so.”
While this is a setback to Uber’s plans, we guess getting past regulators and having the proper approval is something that all carmakers need to take into consideration moving forward.
Filed in . Read more about Legal, Self-Driving Cars and Uber.