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. “That pilot really pushes the ball forward for us,” said Raffi Krikorian, Director of Uber Advanced Technologies Center (ATC) in Pittsburgh, the company’s main facility for testing self-driving vehicles. Uber is the first company in the U.S. to make self-driving cars available to the general public. However, during the test in Pittsburgh, an Uber engineer will ride in the passenger seat to jump in if anything goes wrong. Uber executives are watching to see how the cars handle these challenges before saying when fully driverless vehicles will be ready to hit the roads.

Source: thestar September 14, 2016 20:26 UTC