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Uber Buys Autonomous Truck Startup Otto

posted by cmn32480 on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the that-is-a-lot-bigger-than-a-car dept.

bitshifter writes:

From MotorAuthority.com:

Ride-sharing giant Uber sees a future where it not only has a fleet of self-driving cars offering rides to the public, but also self-driving trucks transporting goods on the highway.

Uber on Thursday announced the acquisition of Otto, an American startup with around 90 staff working on developing self-driving trucks. The announcement was made on the same day Uber announced a deal with Volvo to source additional test cars for its growing fleet of self-driving cars.

Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski has been put in charge of all autonomous driving efforts at the combined firms and will report to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Early last decade Levandowski developed the Ghostrider, a self-driving motorcycle that now sits in the Smithsonian. He was also on Google's self-driving car team.

Otto was only founded in January but much of its staff comes from more established firms including Apple, Google, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] and Cruise Automation. Otto's goal isn't to start selling self-driving trucks but rather to develop technology that can be licensed to truck manufacturers or turned into kits that can be retrofitted to existing trucks to make them autonomous.

Also at theverge.com

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:58AM (#390949)

    So this is how hipster startups really work. Sell their companies to each other while producing nothing of value. Oh yeah the self-driving dingus gonna self-drive itself any day now.

  • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:16AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:16AM (#390958) Journal

    I had trouble viewing this story, but it was reported elsewhere that

    Uber announced Thursday that it will soon offer rides in self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, a significant step toward rides without a human driver.

    -- https://www.ksl.com/?sid=41134431&nid=157 [ksl.com]

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:21AM (#390960)

      Kalanick still sees a rosy future for drivers. In a recent interview with Business Insider, he argued that in an autonomous world the number of human driver would go up.

      Good to see Uber is headed by a lying sociopath.