What It's Like to Ride in Uber's Driverless Cars

Beginning earlier this month, some

Uber

customers in Pittsburgh have been treated to a preview of what many expect to be the future of ridesharing. Fourteen self-driving Ford Fusions began ferrying riders within a 12-square-mile section of the city's downtown.

During what is being characterized as an indefinite test period, the cars aren't truly driverless. In fact, there are two Uber employees in each car, one to assume manual control when required, another to observe and take notes. But it is a major step toward a truly driverless taxi service. (The term "rideshare" begins to seem inappropriate here, as the high-tech driverless vehicles would presumably be owned by Uber, rather than your next-door neighbor or the kid down the block.)



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Here's a sampling of comments and observations from journalists who were among the first to test-ride the semi-driverless cars:

The ride feels pretty much like a ride in any other car — with an extremely cautious driver. We go maybe one or two miles an hour over the speed limit. Turns in particular feel painfully slow… Uber is like the Wright brothers testing the world's first airplane on the coast of North Carolina. Pretty cool. But not terribly practical yet.

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Uber and other advocates of a driverless future make a compelling case for the technology's capacity to improve safety and congestion, among other social benefits. Noting that 90 percent of the 1 million annual traffic fatalities are due to human error, company CEO Travis Kalanick promises “This is a tragedy that self-driving technology can help solve.”

Based on early results of Uber's Pittsburgh experiment, it won't be long before those rosy claims are put to the test.



Reader Reality Check



Are you ready for driverless rides?

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