More than two years ago Uber - like most in the car business - identified autonomous driving technology as the springboard for the next stage of growth.
The aggressive San Francisco-based startup has already shaken up the world’s taxi services, earning a valuation of $68 billion. It plans ultimately to replace many of its 1.5 million drivers with autonomous vehicles.
But it is not as if robots are taking over. There will be only four self-driving vehicles available to passengers to start, and two people will sit in the front to take over driving when the car cannot steer itself.
Uber provided ride-alongs to reporters on Tuesday. During a ride of about one hour, we observed the Uber car safely - and for the most part smoothly - stop at red lights and accelerate at green lights, travel over a bridge, move around a mail truck and slow for a driver opening a car door on a busy street. All without a person touching the controls.
But the Uber driver and the engineer in the front two seats did intervene every few miles. Uber's Pittsburgh fleet consists of Ford Fusion cars outfitted with 3D cameras, global positioning systems (GPS) and a technology called lidar that uses lasers to assess the shape and distance of objects, mounted somewhat crudely to the vehicle's roof. The company is also outfitting Volvo SUVs that will be added to the fleet.
The cars do drive themselves, the Uber driver in the front seat took control, according to company protocol, to allow pedestrians to cross the street, manoeuvre through a construction zone and make a left turn across traffic at an intersection.
An Uber engineer sat in the passenger seat, occasionally adjusting the speed of the car, which mostly drove slowly.
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