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NEW YORK: Uber Technologies Inc. expects it to be still long before one of its biggest investments, autonomous cars, is ready for a large-scale deployment, said a scientist senior Monday, while the carpool company is preparing to depart Public.
Raquel Urtasun, chief scientist at Uber Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) and head of the group's Toronto unit, spoke of the challenges posed by the development of autonomous driving at an event organized by Reuters Newsmaker At New York. York.
"Autonomous cars are going to be in our lives, the question of when is not clear yet," said Urtasun. "Having this on the scale is going to take a lot of time."
The more cautious tone marks a change from three years ago, when Uber adopted an aggressive tactic to turbocharge its autonomous vehicle development in order to get more taxis-robots into the streets for more miles. The company was seen as a tech leader until one of its autonomous SUVs killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, last March.
Urtasun's comments are consistent with the rest of the auto sector, which, after much hype and bold promises, has moderated expectations and pushed back deployment deadlines. The extreme technical challenges of building cars capable of predicting human behavior and reacting appropriately proved to be superior to what even some of the brightest minds in the industry had anticipated.
The progress of Uber's self-driving unit is in the spotlight as the company prepares to launch its initial public offering this year. Uber, whose pre-tax losses, depreciation and other expenses amounted to $ 1.8 billion last year, sometimes spent nearly $ 200 million in a single quarter for its self-sustaining unit, indicated sources at Reuters.
Uber, valued for the last time at $ 76 billion in the private market, is seeking a valuation up to $ 120 billion as part of its IPO and could start its roadshow for investors before the end of the year. April, announced Reuters.
"It's true that when you go on an IPO, your finances are much more scrutinized," said Urtasun. "That being said, again, because Uber understands that large-scale autonomous cars will not happen tomorrow, they understand the need for science."
Urtasun declined to give advice on mixing human-powered cars and autonomous cars that will take Uber in the next 10 years, citing too much uncertainty in the sector.
"What is clear is that in 10 years, there will be a mix of both (autonomous cars and man-controlled cars)," she said.
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The construction of autonomous cars is extremely expensive and the payment period is increasingly uncertain. However, some believe that Uber's ability to successfully transition to autonomous vehicles is crucial to the company's long-term financial outlook.
By eliminating drivers and adding automation, Uber will be able to stack the full price that passengers pay and create more efficient routes to move passengers and packages.
Uber opened ATG in Toronto in 2017 and appointed Urtasun, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, to head the Toronto organization. Uber announced last year that it would invest more than 150 million US dollars in Toronto to expand its self-driving business, open an engineering center and expand its business in the field of automotive. Artificial intelligence.
After the fatal crash in Arizona, Uber took its autonomous cars off the road, fired hundreds of test drivers and ended its Arizona testing center. Uber took over very few tests on public roads in Pittsburgh in December.
Uber has recently adopted a more collaborative approach, inviting General Motors Co, Cruise, and Waymo of Alphabet Inc.'s Autonomous Autonomous Unit to put their cars on the Uber network. Urtasun said Monday that Uber had encouraged all independent companies to add their cars to the Uber network.
"We were very very open to the idea that all the other companies are on our network (of autonomous vehicles)," Urtasun said.
A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp and Toyota Motor Corp. is in talks to invest at least one billion US dollars in Uber's autonomous vehicle, Reuters announced last month.
Toyota had already invested 500 million USD to jointly develop autonomous cars with Uber.
(Report by Alessandra Galloni and Joshua Franklin in New York, additional report by Heather Somerville in San Francisco, edited by Lisa Shumaker)
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