Uber Self-driving Car Spotted

Uber is working on self-driving cars. The company announced those plans in February. Now the first self-drivng Uber car has been spotted.

Uber has announced to work on self-driving cars back in February. In what looks like a smart move they entered a strategic partnership with prestigious Carnegie Mellon University to setup the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, near the CMU campus.

Jeff Holden, Uber Chief Product Officer said back then: “We are excited to join the community of Pittsburgh and partner with the experts at CMU, whose breadth and depth of technical expertise, particularly in robotics, are unmatched. As a global leader in urban transportation, we have the unique opportunity to invest in leading edge technologies to enable the safe and efficient movement of people and things at giant scale.  This collaboration and the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center represent an important investment in building for the long term of Uber.”

Now the Pittsburgh Business Times has spotted the first Uber research vehicle with a large contraption on top that holds a bunch of sensors and cameras. “This vehicle is part of our early research efforts regarding mapping, safety and autonomy systems,” Uber spokeswoman Trina Smith said in an email to the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Self-driving cars are the new goal for not only car companies. Google has been an early investor into autonomous driving and Apple is rumored to head into the same direction. Google is already bringing its small bug shaped self-driving cars onto the roads in Mountain View this summer.

Controversial Uber is also in the news in the UK today. London’s major Boris Johnson is backing new laws that would limit the growth of Uber to protect the traditional black cabs according to BBC. Uber faces regulatory issues all over the place.