Two years after Uber bought self-driving truck developer Otto to the tune of $ 680 million, the ride hailing company announced on Monday that the Uber Advanced Technologies Group is shuttering its autonomous truck unit. The company remains committed to further developing its self-driving car platform, which has only killed one pedestrian so far. Uber Freight, a separate service that helps connect shipping companies with drivers, is being spared as well.
As recently as this past March, Uber was hard at work furthering the self-driving truck technology in Arizona, where the vehicles logged thousands of deliveries over the course of months. In an internal email from Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, originally procured by TechCrunch, states that employees affected by this decision will be pivoted to related autonomous projects, such as the ATG’s efforts to build an in-house LiDAR package, otherwise they’ll have the option to move to the company’s Pittsburg HQ or accept a separation package.
We’ve reached out to Uber for comment and will update this post upon the company’s reply.
Source: TechCrunch
