SAN FRANCISCO – Uber is bringing a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco – a move likely to excite the city\u2019s tech-savvy population and certain to antagonize California regulators.<\/p>\n
The Wednesday launch in Uber\u2019s hometown expands a public pilot program the company started in Pittsburgh in September. The testing lets everyday people experience the cars as Uber works to identify glitches before expanding the technology\u2019s use in San Francisco and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
California law, however, requires a test permit for \u201cautonomous vehicles,\u201d and Uber does not have one. The company argues that the law doesn\u2019t apply because its cars require a human backup – so while they are self-driving, they are not autonomous.<\/p>\n
Making that kind of distinction is in line with Uber\u2019s history of testing legal boundaries. Although the company has been around less than a decade, it has argued with authorities around the world about how much of its drivers\u2019 histories should be covered in background checks and whether those drivers should be treated as contractors ineligible for employee benefits.<\/p>\n
\nTHE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO<\/strong><\/p>\n Uber\u2019s self-driving tests in San Francisco will begin with a \u201chandful\u201d of Volvo luxury SUVs – the company wouldn\u2019t release an exact number – that have been tricked out with sensors so they can steer, accelerate and brake, and even decide to change lanes. The cars will have an Uber employee behind the wheel to take over should the technology fail. Users of the app may be matched with a self-driving car, but can opt out if they prefer a human driver. Self-driven rides cost the same as ordinary ones.<\/p>\n The cars will be put to the test in the congested streets of San Francisco. The city can be a daunting place to drive given its famously steep hills, frequent fog, street and cable cars, an active bicycle culture, and roads that are constantly being repaved, remarked and restricted for bike lanes and traffic management.<\/p>\n Uber believes its technology is ready to handle all this safely, though its executives concede the vehicles are nowhere near able to drive without a human ready to take control in dicey situations.<\/p>\n There was room for improvement during a Tuesday test drive attended by The Associated Press. The car was destined for a local pizza parlor, but didn\u2019t pull directly in front of the restaurant, and instead stopped in the middle of the street. The cars may strike some riders as over-cautious, too. During the test drive, one idled in a traffic jam even though an adjacent lane was clear, prompting the human driver to make the move himself.<\/p>\n Uber\u2019s fleet of Volvo XC90s won\u2019t be the first self-driving cars on San Francisco streets – several other companies visit regularly with test prototypes, though none offers public rides.<\/p>\n Once testing is complete, the ultimate vision is to sell to the public technology which supporters argue will save thousands of lives because it doesn\u2019t drink, text, fall asleep or take dangerous risks.<\/p>\n PERMIT ME NOT<\/strong><\/p>\n Under state law, tests of autonomous vehicles on public roads require a permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The department has issued permits to 20 companies, mostly a collection of traditional automakers and tech companies – but not Uber.<\/p>\n Uber argues that its cars aren\u2019t covered by the law, which says that an \u201cautonomous vehicle\u201d requires a permit if it can drive itself \u201cwithout the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Anthony Levandowski, the leader of Uber\u2019s self-driving program, Uber\u2019s cars simply aren\u2019t advanced enough to drive themselves without human monitoring. \u201cWe\u2019re just not capable of doing that yet,\u201d he said. Therefore, the Volvos are not autonomous and do not require a permit, he said.<\/p>\n It makes no sense to get a permit when one is not needed, Levandowski said: \u201cThis is where science and logic needs to trump blind compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement issued late Tuesday, the DMV said it \u201cencourages the responsible exploration of self-driving cars\u201d and noted that 20 companies have permits to test hundreds of cars in California.<\/p>\n \u201cUber shall do the same,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n Operating without a permit arguably gives Uber a competitive advantage. Companies with one must report to the state all crashes and every instance in which a person takes control during testing. All that information is public. To receive a permit, a company must show proof of insurance, pay a $150 fee and agree that a human driver can take control of the vehicle.<\/p>\n Uber\u2019s stance seems likely to upset both state officials and competitors, said Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who tracked California\u2019s law as it was drafted in 2012. While an attorney could argue that Uber is reading the letter of California law correctly, Smith said, testing permits were \u201cenvisioned as a gateway, as an interim step\u201d to launching self-driving cars on public roads.<\/p>\n Smith recalled discussing at the time the argument that Uber is now making: One day, a company might go public without a testing permit precisely because the law requires human oversight during testing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SAN FRANCISCO – Uber is bringing a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco – a move likely to excite the city\u2019s tech-savvy population and certain to antagonize California regulators. The Wednesday launch in Uber\u2019s hometown expands a public pilot program the company started in Pittsburgh in September. The testing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-25006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25006"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}