Uber is thinking a lot about the future of its business, and just like Google, the company is considering the prospects of driverless cars. The taxi company is very serious about going down this route, as it recently partnered with Carnegie Mellon University.
According to a recent blog post, Uber made it clear that its partnership with the University is to help it create what the company calls the Uber Advanced Technologies Center. This center will be based in Pittsburgh, and the goal is to develop new technologies that are capable of advancing Uber’s business.
One of the first order of business is to dive into the world of driverless cars. We suspect this might be a top priority for Uber since recent reports claim Google is making plans to compete with Uber by using its own fleet of driverless cars.
“We are excited to join the community of Pittsburgh and partner with the experts at CMU, whose breadth and depth of technical expertise, particularly in robotics, are unmatched,” according to Jeff Holding, Uber’s Chief Product Officer. “As a global leader in urban transportation, we have the unique opportunity to invest in leading edge technologies to enable the safe and efficient movement of people and things at giant scale. This collaboration and the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center represent an important investment in building for the long term of Uber.”
Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, has a deep fascination with driverless cars and believes such a technology could allow for fewer expensive rides. How? Well, a driverless car means commuters will not have to pay for the expense of a driver, thus making the ride cheaper.
Basically, what Uber plans to do here is to remove the middle-man, which could cause for increased profits since the company will not have drivers to pay. It is also a sad thing for taxi drivers because as the years go by, they will have to compete with these driverless cars, and we believe they will end up on the losing end.