{"id":211761,"date":"2017-11-21T07:24:02","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T05:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=211761"},"modified":"2017-11-21T07:24:02","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T05:24:02","slug":"uber-expands-driverless-car-push-with-deal-for-24000-volvos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/211761\/uber-expands-driverless-car-push-with-deal-for-24000-volvos\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber expands driverless-car push with deal for 24,000 Volvos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Uber Technologies agreed to buy 24,000\u00a0sport utility vehicles from Volvo Cars to form a fleet of driverless autos, a signal that the company remains committed to autonomous cars under newly appointed chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0XC90s, priced from\u00a0$46,900 at US dealers, will be delivered from\u00a02019 to 2021 in the first commercial purchase by a ride-hailing provider, Volvo said in a statement Monday. San Francisco-based Uber will add its own sensors and software to permit pilot-less driving.<\/p>\n

Uber\u2019s order steps up efforts to replace human drivers, the biggest cost in its on-demand taxi service.\u00a0The autonomous fleet is small compared with the more than 2 million people who drive for Uber but reflects dedication to the company\u2019s strategy of developing self-driving cars.<\/p>\n

Last year, Uber agreed to use 100 XC90s for self-driving tests in Pittsburgh and later struck a deal to include autonomous vehicles from Daimler AG\u2019s Mercedes-Benz\u00a0in its network at some point.<\/p>\n

But the status of the project was unclear after Alphabet Inc\u2019s driverless car division Waymo sued Uber this year, claiming the ride-hailing company stole trade secrets, and the US Justice Department opened an inquiry into the matter.<\/p>\n

Uber has said it didn\u2019t use stolen information. Shortly before taking over as CEO in September, Khosrowshahi said Uber must focus on the core business, which raised questions about the costly self-driving program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new agreement puts us on a path toward mass-produced, self-driving vehicles at scale,\u201d Jeff Miller, Uber\u2019s head of auto alliances, told Bloomberg News. \u201cThe more people working on the problem, we\u2019ll get there faster and with better, safer, more reliable systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

For carmakers, news of Uber buying vehicles at a commercial level\u00a0means potential new sales, but also looming disruption to a business model that sees autos largely sold to private owners.<\/p>\n

Uber\u2019s $70 billion valuation already puts the group almost on a par with Germany\u2019s Daimler.<\/p>\n

The deal will boost sales at Volvo and should also help lower the cost of the Chinese-controlled group\u2019s own fully-autonomous cars planned from 2021. Volvo engineers have been working closely with Uber to develop a base vehicle with core driverless technology that the ride-hailing company can then augment.<\/p>\n

Volvo plans to use those cars for its own future offering.<\/p>\n

The Five Levels of Vehicle Automation<\/strong>\u201cThe automotive industry is being disrupted by technology and Volvo Cars chooses to be an active part of that disruption,\u201d chief executive officer Hakan Samuelsson said. \u201cIt\u2019s a new market that\u2019s emerging and we\u2019re the first to be delivering into that segment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyft Inc the main ride-hailing alternative in the US, has said it\u2019s also building driverless cars but has mainly focused on partnerships.<\/p>\n

Among those that have agreed to test autonomous vehicles on Lyft\u2019s platform are Delphi Automotive Plc\u2019s NuTonomy, Ford Motor Co, Jaguar Land Rover and Waymo.<\/p>\n

Uber, which didn\u2019t put a time frame on when it might introduce driverless rides, said its approach means anyone in the industry can \u201cdeploy its tech.\u201d<\/p>\n

It highlighted people using hand signals and eye contact to negotiate traffic as one of the major challenges remaining for\u00a0autonomous autos.<\/p>\n

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Read: Lyft raises $1 billion from Alphabet to battle Uber<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uber Technologies agreed to buy 24,000 sport utility vehicles from Volvo Cars to form a fleet of driverless autos, a signal that the company remains committed to autonomous cars under newly appointed chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":115698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[6457,10879],"class_list":["post-211761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-uber","tag-volvo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211771,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211761\/revisions\/211771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}