Uber is putting the brakes on its self-driving truck program.
Employees working on the self-driving trucks will be moved to other positions within Uber’s autonomous car projects.
The self-driving truck program began with startup Otto, which Uber acquired in 2016. Otto ended up in a high-profile conflict with Google’s Waymo in 2017. They alleged that Google’s former self-driving technical lead Anthony Levandowski stole technology from Google before founding Otto. The conflict was settled in court, with Uber giving Waymo $245 million worth of shares and Waymo checking that none of their trade secrets were involved with Uber’s operations.
Now, trucking appears to be taking a back seat to cars. Uber recently returned self-driving cars to Pittsburgh. Testing there had been paused since a self-driving Uber car struck and killed a woman in Arizona.
“We’ve decided to stop development on our self-driving truck program and move forward exclusively with cars,” Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, said in a statement accessed via USA Today. “We recently took the important step of returning to public roads in Pittsburgh, and as we look to continue that momentum, we believe having our entire team’s energy and expertise focused on this effort is the best path forward.”
