Uber's controversial self-driving truck division shuts down
Uber is shutting down its self-driving truck program, the company acknowledged on Monday. It's the latest example of Uber scaling back its self-driving technology efforts in the wake of a deadly Uber self-driving car crash in March.
Uber's self-driving truck program has been embroiled in controversy since Uber acquired the unit two years ago. The acquisition price was reportedly $680 million, though the actual cost may have been much less than that. Previously, it had been a startup called Otto, led by controversial ex-Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski. Waymo sued Uber, arguing that Levandowski had taken Waymo trade secrets with him on the way out the door.
[...] "We've decided to stop development on our self-driving truck program and move forward exclusively with cars," said Eric Meyhofer, the leader of Uber's self-driving technology program, in a statement to The Verge. Personnel from the truck division will be folded into the company's self-driving car efforts.
Previously: Uber Buys Autonomous Truck Startup Otto
The Fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Uber Pulls Self-Driving Cars After First Fatal Crash of Autonomous Vehicle
Related Stories
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
The Fall of Travis Kalanick Was a Lot Weirder and Darker Than You Thought
A year ago, before the investor lawsuits and the federal investigations, before the mass resignations, and before the connotation of the word "Uber" shifted from "world's most valuable startup" to "world's most dysfunctional," Uber's executives sat around a hotel conference room table in San Francisco, trying to convince their chief executive officer, Travis Kalanick, that the company had a major problem: him.
[...] [A] top executive excused herself to answer a phone call. A minute later, she reappeared and asked Kalanick to step into the hallway. Another executive joined them. They hunched over a laptop to watch a video that had just been posted online by Bloomberg News: grainy, black-and-white dashcam footage of Kalanick in the back seat of an UberBlack on Super Bowl weekend, heatedly arguing over fares with a driver named Fawzi Kamel. "Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit!" Kalanick can be heard yelling at Kamel. "They blame everything in their life on somebody else!"
As the clip ended, the three stood in stunned silence. Kalanick seemed to understand that his behavior required some form of contrition. According to a person who was there, he literally got down on his hands and knees and began squirming on the floor. "This is bad," he muttered. "I'm terrible." Then, contrition period over, he got up, called a board member, demanded a new PR strategy, and embarked on a yearlong starring role as the villain who gets his comeuppance in the most gripping startup drama since the dot-com bubble. It's a story that, until now, has never been fully told.
The article discusses a number of Uber and Kalanick scandals/events, including:
- The #DeleteUber movement following Uber being accused of breaking up an airport taxi strike (which was in protest of President Trump's executive order restricting travel from Muslim countries), as well as Kalanick's decision to join President Trump's business advisory council (and later leave it).
- Susan Fowler's blog post recounting sexual harassment at Uber, and the hiring of former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the claims.
- The revelation of Uber's Greyball system, which was used to avoid picking up law enforcement and taxi inspectors.
- Uber's purchase of self-driving truck startup Otto, which eventually led key Uber investor Google (Waymo) to sue Uber, seeking billions in damages.
- Kalanick's "inexplicable" support of Anthony Levandowski, who he called his "brother from another mother", even after Levandowski stopped defending Uber in the Waymo v. Uber case.
- Kalanick's apology to the taxi driver Fawzi Kamel, which amounted to a $200,000 payoff.
- A visit to a Seoul escort-karaoke bar that resulted in an HR complaint and a report in The Information.
- Uber's president for Asia-Pacific Eric Alexander obtaining a confidential medical record of passenger who was raped by an Uber driver in Delhi, India. Alexander, Kalanick, and others discussed a theory that their Indian competitor Ola faked/orchestrated the rape.
- Kalanick making his presence known during a "leave of absence" by trying to maintain control over the company and its board.
- Arianna Huffington promoting her wellness company's products while acting as Kalanick's apparent proxy on the board.
- The new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's response to the city of London revoking Uber's operating license.
A self-driving Uber SUV struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. It was in autonomous mode at the time of the collision, with a vehicle operator behind the wheel. Uber has suspended testing of its self-driving cars.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-autonomous-car-fatal-crash/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverless-fatality.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/self-driving-uber-kills-arizona-171055918.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/19/594950197/uber-suspends-self-driving-tests-after-pedestrian-is-killed-in-arizona
https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-suspends-driverless-car-program-after-pedestrian-is-struck-and-killed-1521480386
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17139518/uber-self-driving-car-fatal-crash-tempe-arizona
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-test-car-involved-in-accident-resulting-in-pedestrian-death/
I couldn't find any good analysis of the liability situation here.
Uber Sells Off Self-Driving and Flying Taxi Units
Uber sells its self-driving unit to Aurora
Uber's self-driving unit, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), is being acquired by its start-up competitor Aurora Innovation, the companies announced Monday.
The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2021, values ATG at approximately $4 billion. The unit was valued at $7.25 billion in Apr. 2019 when Softbank, Denso and Toyota took a stake.
[...] Uber's co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick had viewed self-driving as an essential investment, saying in 2016 he believed the world would shift to autonomous vehicles. ATG had been a long-term play for Uber, but the unit brought high costs and safety challenges. Throughout the course of a pandemic-stricken year, Uber has made efforts to stem losses in its ride hailing business, control business costs -- including with major layoffs in the spring -- and to grow its delivery business.
Uber is also reportedly selling its flying taxi division to Joby Aviation, presumably putting an end to its involvement with the U.S. Army.
Uber has been scaling back its driverless car efforts since it caused the death of a pedestrian in 2018. Uber has never had a profitable quarter.
Also at NYT, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, and The Verge.
Previously: The Fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Uber Pulls Self-Driving Cars After First Fatal Crash of Autonomous Vehicle
Uber Shutting Down Self-Driving Truck Division
Uber Allegedly Ignored Safety Warnings Before Self-Driving Fatality
Will Car Ownership Soon Become "Quaint"?
Uber Freezes Engineering Hires Amid Mounting Losses
Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency
Anthony Levandowski – President Trump granted a full pardon to Anthony Levandowski. This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others. Mr. Levandowski is an American entrepreneur who led Google's efforts to create self-driving technology. Mr. Levandowski pled guilty to a single criminal count arising from civil litigation. Notably, his sentencing judge called him a "brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs." Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good.
Wikipedia entry on pardon within the United States.
See also: Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski among list of last-minute Trump pardons
Trump's last-minute pardons include Bannon, Lil Wayne and scores of others
Trump Reportedly Abandoned Pardons For Snowden And Assange
Trump declines to pardon Assange, Snowden, or 'Joe Exotic' – here's the 143 people he chose
Previously: Text Messages Between Uber's Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski Released
The Fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Uber Shutting Down Self-Driving Truck Division
Ex-Uber Engineer Levandowski Pleads Guilty To Trade Secrets Theft
Uber Accuses Levandowski of Fraud, Refuses to Pay $179M Google Judgment
Ex-Googler Levandowski Gets 18 Months in Prison for Trade-Secret Theft
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @05:21PM (4 children)
Uber can't collapse on itself fast enough. Many of their business practices are suspect at best and criminal at worst. No matter that they changed CEOs - their culture of deceit goes deep down into their roots. Now that they are breaking fewer laws, and lying less, we see them failing. Bye Felicia.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 01 2018, @06:14PM (3 children)
Consumers are sheep, and the failure of Lyft to capitalize on Uber's scumbagness never ceases to amaze me.
As long as "I'll get an Uber" doesn't get displaced by "I'll get a Lyft/Ride/app-driven-optimized-taxi-service (not at all a mouthful)", Uber will keep getting investors' money. The investors know the value of the name, and the customer database, so it will take a nasty lawsuit to make them bail.
Stupid sheep.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday August 01 2018, @06:32PM (2 children)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/14/lyft-market-share-051418-bosa-sf.html [cnbc.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 02 2018, @08:46AM (1 child)
Where do we think Uber screwed up so badly?
Business Trickery? Mistreating customers? Mistreating drivers?
The first I listed, Business Trickery, is the quickest one that turns me off to businesses. If they can't present an offer clearly in an ad, I'd be damned to get in bed with them only then to discover what they were hoping I would not see until I committed.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday August 02 2018, @02:53PM
Getting caught. Rule #1: Don't get caught.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]