Uber is a local transportation and delivery giant. They have struck a deal that will allow Google to gather data from the fleet of vehicles to help improve their systems. Uber is committing to investing $375 million into this project. This will be the first approved commercial use of an autonomous vehicle in the United States.
Google has released their third vehicle the GX3200 and this will be the vehicle that Uber is investing in. It has a very low-weight and runs on fuel-cell technology. The vehicle can get up to 750 miles of travel per charge and will automatically find a Google PowerUp station when not in use.
As of right now Uber and Google are not looking into the personal-use vehicles. These will be used commercially for applications like New York’s outdated taxi service. This car has already been approved for commercial use in California, New York, Illinois, and Washington.
California has already started implementing auto-pilot lanes on which the auto-pilot cars are able to travel at 120 miles per hour, this drastically reduces the commute time and the time the vehicles would be used per person in a commercial taxi environment. Google has yet to be “at fault” in an autonomous car accident.
This has already sparked concerns for businesses in logistics and self-employed drivers as well. Autonomous vehicles should they do well have the ability to put a lot of people out of jobs. Right-now this will only affect a small number of people. Who can say how well this experiment will do and if it will become the new standard in logistics.
