NEWS-07
Uber has become the latest company to test a fleet of self-driving cars.>
remain questions about their safety. Uber rolled out its cars today on the
streets of Pittsburgh.>
LESTER HOLT (00:21:05): Tesla has it, Google and others are experimenting with it and now Uber has become the latest company to test a fleet of self- driving cars. While driverless cars may be the future, here in the present there remain questions about their safety. Uber rolled out its cars today on the streets of Pittsburgh and Jo Ling Kent got to take her own test drive.
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JO LING KENT (NBC news Technology Correspondent) (00:21:26): Self-driving Ubers hitting the road in the City of Bridges, picking up their first customers in a new pilot program.
(00:21:32): Okay. We`re going to go for our first ride in a driverless Uber. It`s got twenty cameras, seven lasers, let`s see what we can do.
(00:21:39): Uber has outfitted a fleet of Ford Fusions with three-hundred- sixty-degree radar. But customers won`t be riding alone. An Uber engineer hovers over the wheel in a driver`s seat while another monitors real-time data on a laptop.
(00:21:51): Now it`s our turn to take this for a spin. But it`s a driverless car, so we`re not going to be doing much driving.
(00:21:57): With the push of a button, the car morphs into self-driving mode.
ANTHONY LEVANDOWSKI (Uber Vice President of Engineering) (00:22:00): The lasers that spins around three-sixty on top sees the world in 3D.
JO LING KENT (00:22:03): There are six hundred people inside Uber`s new research lab.
ANTHONY LEVANDOWSKI (00:22:07): We can build cars that are safer than, you know, people. So that`s the ultimate objective.
BILL PEDUTO (Mayor of Pittsburgh) (00:22:10): I was driving the other day and--
JO LING KENT (00:22:12): Uber chose Pittsburgh because it`s a tech hub with challenging roads.
BILL PEDUTO (00:22:16): We have an opportunity to build a new industry within Pittsburgh that otherwise will be built in Singapore or San Francisco.
JO LING KENT (00:22:23): So would you put your family member in a driverless car with full faith?
BILL PEDUTO (00:22:26): Yeah. Yeah, I would.
JO LING KENT (00:22:28): But regulators and writers aren`t all on board. After a Tesla driver was killed while using the autopilot function in May. Our self-driving Uber stopped working midway through the ride. I had to put my hands on the wheel and reengaged to make a right turn. The National Highway Safety Transportation Safety Administration tells NBC News it ".will soon issue guidance.." on deploying driverless vehicles.
DEBBIE HERSMAN (National Safety Council President and CEO) (00:22:49): We`ve got a long way to go. It can`t be the Wild West out there when people`s lives are in the hands of cars that are run by computers.
JO LING KENT (00:22:57): But that`s not stopping Uber from zooming ahead into a new frontier.
(00:23:01): Jo Ling Kent, NBC News, Pittsburgh.
(End VT)
LESTER HOLT (00:23:05): Ford announced something today that is certain to resonate with a lot of Americans, it will move production of all of its small cars from the U.S. to Mexico over the next two to three years. The Focus and the C-MAX are the only small cars still produced by Ford in this country. Such moves of course have become an issue in the presidential campaign. Ford says the Michigan plant where the cars are made will shift to production to other vehicles.
(00:23:29): When we come back, he has spent years selling ice pops on the streets. Now a sweet future he might have never imagined.
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