Uber abandons the autonomous truck to focus on the car

Uber has decided to abandon its autonomous truck program to focus on its driverless car projects, announced Monday the American group.

" We decided to stop the development of our autonomous truck program and to move exclusively on "autonomous" cars, said Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, in an email to AFP. [19659003] "We believe that focusing the energy and expertise of the entire team on (the car) is the best way to go," he added, even as Uber announced in March to start doing to drive autonomous trucks in the United States to transport goods over long distances

Uber nonetheless continues its activities in traditional road transport, with its application Uber Freight, which since 2017 puts drivers and hauliers in business together of the goods, says the group.

Uber had launched into the autonomous truck by buying the startup Otto in 2016.

Co-founded by a former engineer from Waymo (subsidiary autonomous driving of Alphabet / Google), Otto found himself in the middle of a lawsuit in February, where Waymo accused his ex-employee of robbing him of autonomous driving technologies, which ended up in the hands of Uber when he bought Otto.

The deal resulted in an amicable agreement, Uber agreeing to pay Waymo nearly $ 250 million and promising not to use the patents in question.

(AFP)