Self-driving Uber cars hit streets in Pittsburgh
PITTSBURGH — Uber riders in Pittsburgh can get a glimpse of the future by summoning a car capable of handling most of the tasks of driving on its own.
Starting this morning, a fleet of self-driving Ford Fusions will pick up Uber riders who opted to participate in a test program. While the vehicles are loaded with features that allow them to navigate on their own, an Uber engineer will sit in the driver’s seat and seize control if things go awry.
Uber’s test program is the latest move in an increasingly heated race between tech companies in Silicon Valley and traditional automakers to perfect fully driverless cars for regular people.
A reporter from The Associated Press tried out the service Monday. The ride went smoothly, with the car waiting for oncoming traffic before making a turn and at one point stopping for a vehicle that was backing into a parking space. Parking, however, was a task the human driver had to perform.
Pittsburgh is a particularly good place to experiment, Uber engineers said, because the city is a research hub of self-driving cars and has notoriously bad driving conditions.
