"Remember when former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick decided to disrupt things with some wholly unpermitted, untested autonomous vehicles that started appearing in San Francisco in December 2016? That early attempt to get ahead in the robotaxi wars turned into a high-profile battle with the California DMV, which got those auonomous vehicles yanked off the streets a week later. Uber went on to continue testing its self-driving Volvos in Tempe, Arizona, leading to a collision in which one flipped over in March 2017."
"There was also the sticky issue that the head of Uber's self-driving car division, Anthony Levandowski, had actually been poached from Google/Waymo, and Google promptly sued for theft of trade secrets. That suit was settled in 2018, but Levandowski was convicted for his crimes and got a pardon from Trump in 2021. This all led to Uber exiting the self-driving car business."
Uber is reentering the robotaxi market through a partnership with Lucid Motors and Nuro, planning a premium robotaxi service in the Bay Area with public launch slated for late 2026. The company previously deployed unpermitted autonomous vehicles in San Francisco in December 2016 that were removed by the California DMV, tested self-driving Volvos in Tempe where a vehicle flipped in March 2017, and experienced a fatal crash in 2018 involving an operator who was distracted. Legal disputes included a theft-of-trade-secrets suit tied to Anthony Levandowski and his later conviction and 2021 pardon, which contributed to Uber exiting the self-driving business before this renewed effort.
Read at sfist.com
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