It was announced on Thursday that Uber is purchasing Otto, a startup co-founded by the former head of Google Maps and one of Google’s top driverless technology engineers. Rather than building an autonomous truck from scratch like many competitors, Otto plans to allow truckers and carriers to install their system on existing trucks to give them autonomous driving capabilities.
In the press release announcing the purchase, Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO of Uber wrote about how “over one million people die on the world’s roads every year and 90 percent of these accidents are due to human error.” With self-driving technology in both cars and trucks, Kalanick believes that those numbers would go way down.
While not explicitly stated in Kalanick’s press release, the acquisition of Otto gives Uber a very clear path toward branching out into on-demand freight with (eventually) driverless trucks. Bloomberg reports that the company has told them they plan to start breaking into long haul trucking in the US.
They are already set to experiment with driverless Uber cars in Pittsburgh starting next month.
To begin with, the “driverless” Ubers will have drivers sitting at the wheel and a specially trained ‘co-pilot’ to ensure safety during the testing phase. As Bloomberg states however, the end goal will be very different. “The goal: to replace Uber’s more than 1 million human drivers with robot drivers—as quickly as possible.”
By the time that happens, Uber freight may be just a phone tap away.
In the press release announcing the purchase, Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO of Uber wrote about how “over one million people die on the world’s roads every year and 90 percent of these accidents are due to human error.” With self-driving technology in both cars and trucks, Kalanick believes that those numbers would go way down.
While not explicitly stated in Kalanick’s press release, the acquisition of Otto gives Uber a very clear path toward branching out into on-demand freight with (eventually) driverless trucks. Bloomberg reports that the company has told them they plan to start breaking into long haul trucking in the US.
They are already set to experiment with driverless Uber cars in Pittsburgh starting next month.
To begin with, the “driverless” Ubers will have drivers sitting at the wheel and a specially trained ‘co-pilot’ to ensure safety during the testing phase. As Bloomberg states however, the end goal will be very different. “The goal: to replace Uber’s more than 1 million human drivers with robot drivers—as quickly as possible.”
By the time that happens, Uber freight may be just a phone tap away.
