Uber pulls plug on own self-driving car programme
Uber has abandoned plans to create its own self-driving car, and will instead take a minority stake in Aurora, a driverless vehicle start-up backed by Amazon and Sequoia, an American venture capital firm.
Uber will transfer its 1,200-employee self-driving unit to Aurora, which at present has 600 staff, and will invest $400m into the project, the Financial Times reported.
According to the FT, Eric Meyhofer, the head of the self-driving unit, will not be joining Aurora and will leave Uber.
Uber’s self-driving car project was marred by tragedy in 2018 when one of its self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
The car hit and killed 49-year old Elaine Herzberg while it was in autonomous mode with a human monitor behind the wheel.
Uber avoided criminal liability following the incident, however its self-driving car testing programme was suspended and remained drastically scaled back in the two years that followed.