As of today, Uber has started offering self-driving cars in San Francisco that pick up passengers for a ride.
The service first launched as a test in Pittsburgh in fall, and has now expanded to Uber's Hometown in the Bay Area!
In San Francisco, the cars face new challenges like narrow roads, very steep hills, frequent fogginess and cable cars on the street.
For safety and legal reasons, the cars don't operate completely driverless yet - 2 Uber employees, one safety driver and one test engineer will sit at the front and take control over the car if needed.
For now, there are only a few operating cars and their range of operation is limited to downtown SF, but the company is looking to expand soon and has purchased 100 vehicles in total from Volvo, which they will now equip accordingly.
The Cars
The cars used for this pilot project are Volvo XC90 SUV's - the third generation of Uber's autonomous cars, which are more advanced than the Fords used in Pittsburgh.
Uber has cooperated with Volvo directly, and integrated their own sensors and technology equipment to create an even better and smarter self-driving car.
There are 7 optical cameras, 360° radar coverage, a LiDAR unit that scans the environment, and ultrasonic detectors.
They allow the car to detect not only objects in front of it, but also potential hazards on the road underneath or around the vehicle.
Apart from the sensors, there is also a compute stack in the back of the car, which is needed for pathfinding in the complex city map and also for identifying objects.
Once the passenger gets in, an iPad located between the two front seats automatically opens up the Uber App and lets the passenger type in his destination and guides him through the steps to start his trip.
When the ride has started, the iPad displays information about the trip, the car's environment and the location on the map.
It even has an integrated function to let you take a selfie inside the self-driving Uber and share it right away - of course a smart move from Uber to ensure promotion.
Test Drive
Starting today, everyone in San Francisco that requests a ride with an UberX has the chance to get into one of these self-driving cars.
But before the service was accessible to the public, TheVerge and TechCrunch were actually invited to a test drive - and this is their verdict:
The technology seemed pretty advanced, but the human drivers still had to step in quite a lot since there are always unpredictable situations in traffic and the car sometimes operated a little too cautious.
" It felt overall like a system that is making good progress in terms of learning – but one that also still has a long way to go before it can do without its human minders up front."-TechCrunch about the Test Drive
Uber themselves have admitted that the technology for a completely autonomous car isn't quite there yet, and that a totally empty car won't pick up passengers in the near future.
Images: 1, 2, 3, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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