Uber no longer will test its self-driving cars in Arizona
300 workers losing jobs as program shuts down
PHOENIX – Uber announced Wednesday that it will abandon its Arizona testing of self-driving cars, a program that had been paused in the wake of a March crash that killed a pedestrian.
The move comes as the ride-hailing company tries to rebrand itself under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who is now starring in a TV ad in which he describes the company’s new mantra as “do the right thing.”
Uber said it plans to restart testing autonomous cars around its Pittsburgh technology center once the Arizona crash inquiry ends and would look into resuming California tests. But questions remain about a program cobbled together in haste under ousted co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.
While some reports last fall suggested Khosrowshahi was thinking twice about pursuing proprietary self-driving tech, he has since recommitted despite a protracted and costly lawsuit from self-driving rival Waymo, the Google autonomous car project that has been testing since 2009 and has an expansive program in Arizona.
Kalanick, who left Uber last year after
a series of cultural and business ethics scandals, became obsessed with building almost overnight the Uber Advanced Technologies Group in 2015.
He poached dozens of robotics experts from self-driving vehicle hub Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and later paid $680 million to buy Otto, a self-driving truck company started by former Google employee Anthony Levandowski.
Waymo later sued Uber, arguing that Levandowski had stolen trade secrets related to the company’s light detection and ranging radar, which is critical to a self-driving car’s understanding of its environment.
After nearly a year of legal wrangling and a week in court, Uber opted to settle the lawsuit.
It did not admit wrongdoing and maintained that no stolen tech was ever used, but it granted Waymo $245 million in Uber shares and agreed to be transparent about its tech going forward.
Ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft see self-driving tech as critical to their long-term financial health since paying drivers cuts into company profits. But it’s one thing to get the tech right and another to convince riders it is safe.
Uber recently hired former National Transportation Safety Board chairman Christopher Hart to conduct a “top-tobottom” safety review of its self-driving car program on safety matters following the Arizona crash.
The accident in Tempe involved a Volvo SUV that Uber had retrofitted with radar, cameras and LiDAR (light detection and ranging lasers). Neither the sensors nor the car’s safety driver saw Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the road at night.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey welcomed Uber’s self-driving tests in December 2016, after the company had been told by California officials that it did not have the requisite permits.
But Ducey suspended Uber’s right to test after the Tempe incident pending a conclusion to an ongoing investigation by federal investigators.
The company said it told about 300 Arizona self-driving program workers that they were being terminated early Wednesday. The shutdown should take several weeks.
Uber has engineering hubs in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and the company said it is easier to test vehicles near those workers. Engineers from those hubs frequently traveled to Arizona to work on the testing project here.
“We’re committed to self-driving technology, and we look forward to returning to public roads in the near future,” Uber said in a prepared statement. “In the meantime, we remain focused on our top-to-bottom safety review, having brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture.”
Test drivers for the autonomous cars have not worked since the accident in Tempe, but Uber said they continued to be paid.
The company’s self-driving trucks have also been shelved since the accident.