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Businesses Transportation

Pittsburgh Is Falling Out of Love With Uber's Self-Driving Cars (engadget.com) 82

A worn-out welcome: The city rolled out the red carpet as a host to Uber's driverless car experiments, but nine months later its mayor and residents have built up a list of grievances with the public-private partnership. From a report: While our experience in one of the autonomous vehicles was thankfully pretty safe, it wasn't long before reports of accidents and wrong-way driving began to surface during the first month of the operation. Nine months later, the relationship continues to sour, according to a report in the New York Times. The things Uber promised in return for the city's support -- including free rides in driverless cars, backing the city's $50 million federal transportation grant and jobs for a neighborhood nearby Uber's testing track -- have not materialized. The situation was an issue during the mayoral primary, too, with critics calling out incumbent Bill Peduto for not getting these agreements in writing from the ride-sharing company.
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Pittsburgh Is Falling Out of Love With Uber's Self-Driving Cars

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  • by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Monday May 22, 2017 @02:44PM (#54464757) Homepage

    A company who seems to actively seek out litigation, who's demonstrably not a team player, is not following through on their verbal commitments?

    I'm shocked, SHOCKED.

    • I'm shocked, SHOCKED.

      Well not that shocked.

    • It's a little shocking. You would think that the very low cost of Uber fulfilling it's promises would be worth it to them, for the goodwill and to show off that other cities should welcome them. And then screw over all the cities en masse once they can be kicked out of 1/2 and still get what they want. But they were short-term greedy.

    • Yea, Uber established themselves as a lying company that doesn't follow the law or meet it's commitments at least two years ago. I'm shocked anyone would deal with them period at this point.

      I think aggressive ticketing and confiscation of the uber cars would be in order.

  • A fiction analogy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday May 22, 2017 @02:58PM (#54464833)

    In the relationship between Uber and all of the other entities working on self-driving technology, I'm sort of reminded of the fictional work The Cryoptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. In the 1990s part of the story Goto Dengo represents the bulk of the entities trying to develop self-driving cars on their own, while Mr. Wing's part is played by Uber, trying to take without knowing/developing on one's own.

    Now, obviously the backstory is entirely different, so the analogy entirely breaks-down if one looks at how the two entities started. That early relationship is more like Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan with Uber playing the role of Harding.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I remember watching an episode of Shark Tank and Chris Sacca got into it with Mark Cuban with some anti-Capitalist garbage about how it was government services and not businesses that really provide for people. What an altruist, right? Later in the episode, he let it slip that as soon as the technology allows, Uber's going to dump all their drivers for the automatons. Chris Sacca thinks he's got street creed as an anti-Capitalist, but he's nothing more than a straight, garden variety one-percenter asshol

    • Now try to remember this whenever you hear a politician try to blow smoke up your a$$.

      Rewatch Milton Friedman videos and see why gov't promises of utopia end up poorly. See Venezuela as one of the latest examples.
      • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        See Venezuela as one of the latest examples.

        Of what...a victim of capitalist imperialism and market manipulation? Chavez lifted millions of people out of abject poverty. Rich and bourgeois shitbags naturally took offense, as they are used to all economic gains flowing to their coffers, at the expense of the vast majority of the population.

  • We won't have self-driving/autonomous cars any time soon. The same applies to "AI". It is all smoke and mirrors, and we can do the easy stuff quickly, but the remaining 10% to get it to actually work will take much longer (or not possible at all).
  • We need more tiny violins! Stat!

  • It is not so much of a falling out as someone else is paying the right people ... this gem from the article itself ..

    "Ford has reportedly invested $1 billion in a Pittsburgh-based self-driving car startup, which could meet more of the city's need for written agreements and data sharing"

    I wonder if that came with ... try to kick uber out instructions ;)
    • It is not so much of a falling out as someone else is paying the right people

      It probably was, but I have no idea why Pittsburgh shouldn't support a local company that brings a $1 billion into the city, shares its data, and will help lobby for pro-Pittsburg spending in Washington. That is, it seems to be doing good for the citizens of Pittsburgh. So, good for them!

      Also, seriously, fuck Uber. I prefer Ford to Uber.

  • Uber is turning into a very expensive joke. They can't even afford their business model. Google and Apple can afford to spend a few billion to build their own fucking towns, make people opt-in by moving there, and not have human driven cars at all. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't done this already. The problems with these auto-driven cars all seem to now be related to integrating with the existing traffic; the driving around part seems to be a done deal.
  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday May 22, 2017 @03:25PM (#54465025)

    DOT will need to set standards for

    * Map data formats
    * smart traffic light systems
    * road markings
    * parking lot markings
    * define who is liable
    * rules to say that all logs / source codes must be given up in a court case or the manufacturer is 100% liable.

    Rules for the systems.
    * Minimum Free update times for software / maps at least 5-8+ years and by free that means with bigger hdd's / new cpus are needed then they must be installed free of change.
    * free data (entertainment does not need to be part of this) with fringe roaming covered.
    * no forced dealer service and no locking of 3rd party lights / batterys / oil changes / etc.

    • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday May 22, 2017 @03:43PM (#54465135) Homepage Journal

      Map makers want to have exclusivity on maps (copyright), so they'll continue to put weird data into the maps.

      What we actually need is federally funded programs to make accurate maps, and use DOT registration and testing fees to help pay for it. Because ultimately it's the car industry that benefits from proper maps, and the public who benefits from cars that do not drive the wrong way down the street.

      (yeah, I know this will make heads explode in the libertarian groupthink)

      • "Libertarian groupthink"? - I am not part of any group. What *I* think is that it is completely unnecessary, is a waste of money and as such is another power grab. Government is not needed to map areas and roads, this is done privately every day by phones, GPS navigators installed in vehicles, will be done with drones, with other personal devices. But as I said I am not part of any group, sure thing you will get your oppressive desire granted, governments do not need encouragement where it comes to such

        • LOL

          But seriously, you don't find it troubling that we depend on maps containing work arounds that are done in order to copyright maps by inserting fictional data. This is done because maps of reality are facts and not creative works, but the maps you are using in your phone, GPS, etc are not strictly a map of reality but a fictions place created for the sake of copyright enforcement.

          There are lots of ways to fix this. Industry leaders could combine their resources to make public maps and use trademark law t

        • by mvdwege ( 243851 )

          privately every day by phones, GPS navigators

          Gee, I didn't know Musk had been launching rockets that long.

          Here's a hint, junior[1], if you are going to make a case for the superiority of private industry, don't mention examples that rely heavily on government-created infrastructure. It kind of undercuts your point.

          [1] Anyone who is so aggressively dumbass libertarian as you is either a teen who just read Atlas Shrugged, or stuck in the mental age of one.

          • Here is a hint for you, use whatever is available at the time.

            GPS is available so use it, whether or not GPS is available without government intervention. Without government destroying lives and wealth on wars (wars being large part of the reason for GPS deployment) the private industry would just as well provide GPS or similar solutions at the pace of private industry untouched by government caused conflicts and destruction.

            By the way positioning systems can be built without space based GPS altogether, ju

            • by mvdwege ( 243851 )

              Without government [...] the private industry would just as well provide GPS

              And if the moon were made of green cheese...

              Like I said, go back to your basement and ask Mum for a biscuit. There's a good boy.

      • There's already a federally funded database for such data, TIGER.
        https://www.census.gov/geo/map... [census.gov]

        Early versions of Google Maps (after leaving NavTEQ and TeleAtlas), used the TIGER database and had weird problems where their own office (Irvine, CA) address was actually showed it being on the wrong block. TIGER address is what suppose to be not what it's actually is once the local government gets done with an area. A better funded TIGER would go greatly into pushing innovation in this space. GIS data is bein

  • What? What difference does it make to get the agreements in writing? They will quibble, file law suits, they will demand to reopen and renegotiate. Anything singed by a city elected official holding a two year term is carved in stone, and they will go to hell and back to wrench every ounce of that written contract. Contracts written and signed by private parties with the government will be litigated, reneged, and reopened all the time. And when all else fails, they transfer all the assets to another corpora
  • I'm not a lawyer, but if you're a city you should get these businesses to sign contracts that agree to terms. If in the end they refuse to fulfill the terms of the agreement, then suing for damages or settlement are in order.

    If businesses want to make promises but not put them in a contract form, then you should ignore those statements as a lot of hot air and should not include them in your evaluation.

    However, one high-profile pastor near Uber's test track said that he'd given Uber a list of potential candidates for jobs at the site, but was told to send them through the regular job portal.

    I doubt there was anything in writing that stated they have to hire a certain number of local people, or pr

    • With a company like Uber, that's not enough. You need to have money put in escrow.
      Uber will likely stiff you on the contract as well.

      • Does Uber have teflon lawyers? Maybe municipal governments should just stay the hell away from making deals with them.

  • It's a damn scam! Is there anything this company does that is actually legal and legit? It wouldnt surprise me if the wrecks weren't into Lyft vehicles and deliberate.

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