A fatal crash last month involving an Uber self-driving car was likely the first known incident of a self-driving car hitting a pedestrian who later succumbed to injuries. Uber has since grounded its entire test fleet of autonomous cars as it investigates the matter but the company has now made it clear that it’s still a believer in the future of autonomous vehicles.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has said that the company still believes in the future prospects for self-driving cars. This should calm speculation about Uber’s plans for its self-driving car technology.
The company has certainly invested a lot of time and resources in this project by now to simply just walk away from it all particularly when self-driving cars will have the core role in Uber’s ride-hailing service which will operate a fleet of autonomous cars.
What Khosrowshahi hasn’t said is when Uber might resume testing its autonomous cars again or what changes it will make to the way it tests these cars to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. He hasn’t even commented on what might have gone wrong in the company’s self-driving car that resulted in this accident.
He has reiterated that Uber is dealing with the incident “very seriously” and that it’s cooperating with federal investigators.
Filed in . Read more about Self-Driving Cars and Uber. Source: reuters