The Pittsburgh Business Times has exclusive photos of an Uber test vehicle that’s roaming the Pittsburgh streets, gathering data as part of the ride-sharing startup’s efforts into autonomous vehicles.
While the car itself, a Ford Fusion with “Uber Advanced Technologies Center” written on the side and a roof loaded with test equipment, is not autonomous, it’s gathering data that Uber hopes to use in future forays into self-driving cars.
“This vehicle is part of our early research efforts regarding mapping, safety and autonomy systems,” an Uber spokesperson told The Pittsburg Business Times.
Uber announced its Pittsburgh-based Advanced Technologies Center in February, and has staffed it with dozens of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center, an authority on autonomous driving.
The test vehicle, which you can see here, has equipment mounted to its roof that looks very similar to the rooftop setups seen on Google-owned vehicles recently. The Verge theorizes that the Uber vehicle’s equipment includes a rotating LIDAR sensor used to map the car’s immediate surroundings.
Uber’s foray into self-driving cars puts it somewhat in competition with Google, one of the biggest investors in the ride-sharing startup. Google announced last week that its own autonomous cars would begin testing on public roads this summer. But Uber has a strong incentive to go autonomous: CEO Travis Kalanick points out how much cheaper Uber rides would be without pesky human drivers.
“The reason Uber could be expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car — you’re paying for the other dude in the car,” Kalanick said at a tech conference last year. “When there’s no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle.”
This story originally appeared on roadandtrack.com via The Verge.
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