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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Uber is preparing to launch self-driving cars in San Francisco [cnet.com], as it has done in Pittsburgh [soylentnews.org]:

Uber's self-driving cars, accompanied by a human driver, have been traveling on the streets of San Francisco for the last three to four months. The company has said the cars are being used solely to collect data for maps [cnet.com]. Mapping streets is part of readying autonomous vehicles for the open road, so they can identify routes and learn to detect obstacles.

Uber isn't saying when it's going to roll out its self-driving cars to passengers in San Francisco. The company declined to comment for this story. But CNET has learned that Uber will officially launch the program on Wednesday; we also learned that Uber worked in partnership with Volvo to develop the self-driving cars.

As of September, Uber didn't have a permit [cnet.com] to run autonomous cars in California. It's unclear if the Department of Motor Vehicles has since given the company a permit. The DMV didn't return requests for comment.

So far, Uber's self-driving cars are available in only one US city -- Pittsburgh. After 18 months of testing, the company launched a small fleet [cnet.com] of autonomous vehicles in September in the city. Now when riders hail an Uber there, they have a chance of being picked up in a self-driving car that's accompanied by a "safety driver." Uber said it plans to have 100 self-driving cars in Pittsburgh by the end of the year.

Also at The Verge [theverge.com].

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