Uber surprised the area of ​​ autonomous driving by announcing that would end his autonomous truck division . The news was reported by the portal TechCrunch and confirmed a few minutes later by Eric Meyhofer, director of Uber 's Advanced Technology Group, who mentioned:

Recently we took the news. important step to return to public roads In Pittsburgh, and while we hope to continue this momentum, we believe that all the energy and expertise of our team focused on this effort is the best way forward.

Although the self-driving truck team's facilities were in San Francisco, California, all staff will be moved to the Pittsburgh offices where the Autonomous Car Division is located ( Uber ATG), so thankfully, no employee of the department will lose his job . Meyhofer added that they preferred to bet on a single autonomous driving team "instead of having two groups working side by side, focused on different vehicle platforms."

Despite the surprise announcement, the project Uber Freight which was launched in 2017, will only be in no way affected . This proposal aims to connect truck drivers with transport companies. Since its launch, Uber has relied heavily on this project thanks to the warm welcome it has received from interested people. Meanwhile, Uber ATG will continue to focus on the investigation of autonomous driving .

The company notes that its relations with truck builders are still on track, even does not rule out taking over project in the future as long as the system autonomous driving in automobiles is completely finished. On this subject, the director spoke,

We are very proud of what the truck team has achieved, and we continue to see the incredible promise of autonomous driving technology applied to the transportation of goods across the country. But we believe in the first in the delivery of autonomous driving applications for passengers, and then take the loading of applications later. For the moment, we have to focus on a team, with a clear goal.

Just four months ago, it became known that Uber self-propelled trucks had begun operating on some roads in the United States. This was after a legal dispute between the company and Waymo that claimed Uber financial compensation for internal data theft, which was ultimately not used to improve the capabilities of the autonomous driving system . The Alphabet company eventually received $ 244 million for damages. Since then, the autonomous trucks project had already begun with controversy, and months later, it decided to put an end to their attention on a system that could yield better results in the near future.