Uber Shuts Down Self-Driving Truck Project; Will Focus on Autonomous Cars
Jul. 31, 2018Global cab-hailing platform Uber has stopped developingself-driving trucksas the programme was no longer competitive in the freight shipping industry, the company announced.
Uber said on Monday that it wants to refocus on the self-driving car programme, which was halted following a crash in which a Uber autonomous car killed a pedestrian in Arizona in March, reports Xinhua news agency.
Employees in the San Francisco-based self-driving truck division will be relocated to other internal units, including the Pittsburgh-based self-driving car programme. Despite the shutdown, Uber Freight, a business unit that helps match truck drivers with shipping companies, will not be affected.
The shutting down of Uber’s self-driving truck program is quite surprising, as it was only in March when Uber announced that its self-driving trucks have already been delivering commercial freight in the Arizona state over the past few months. Uber didn’t reveal a lot of details about its autonomous trucking operations, but did claim that its trucks have completed ‘thousands’ of rides. The company also said that the service had two main transfer hubs in Arizona, but details about the scale and scope of the operations were not known.
(With inputs from IANS)
