How Uber's Self-Driving Program Differs from Waymo's
Uber’s fatal autonomous car crash is a direct result of how it has been running its self-driving project. That’s according to Alex Roy, Founder of The Human Driving Association, who says the ride-hailing company’s approach is in stark contrast to one of its rivals.
“There’s a lot of indication that Waymo’s doing this correctly. They’re taking their time, it’s a slow and steady approach,” Roy explained, citing the fact that Waymo has so far racked up about 4 million miles of testing while Uber has half of that in the books.
Meanwhile, “there’s every indication...that Uber has an existential need to get self-driving cars on the road because drivers cost so much.”
Uber faced major backlash this week after one of its driverless cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz., Sunday.
It is the first known fatality by an autonomous vehicle and raises questions about the future of self-driving auto industry overall.
On Thursday, Tempe police released video footage from the car’s cameras to show exactly what happened. The local police and the National Transportation Safety Board are still investigating who is to blame, but earlier in the week Tempe police said Uber will “likely not be at fault.”
“There are methods of testing self-driving vehicles, they are just going to be more tedious...that’s going to take a lot more time,” said Roy, pointing out that companies can test in closed environments and by using computer simulation instead.
“It’s not a coincidence that it’s Uber who had this crash.”
On Friday, a [New York Times report](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/technology/uber-self-driving-cars-arizona.html) uncovered that even before the crash, Uber's autonomous vehicle unit was struggling to meet internal expectations and required more human intervention than its rivals.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-dangers-of-self-driving-tech).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
