Uber is tackling one issue at a time after one of its autonomous test vehicle collided with and killed a pedestrian outside of Phoenix last month, according to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
He said right now the company is cooperating fully with the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the event.
“Right now our total effort is helping them out and we’ll figure out what we do afterward,” he said, adding that self-driving cars “ultimately will make the world much, much safer.”
The company hasn’t resumed testing of its self-driving cars and Khosrowshahi suggested that would likely be the case until the investigation was complete and a determination could be made about why the car did not appear to detect the pedestrian who was walking her bike across a four-lane divided highway.
(Uber acquires bike-sharing company, Jump. Click Here for the story.)
Uber reached a settlement with the woman’s family, Elaine Herzberg. Details were not disclosed.
It wasn’t Uber’s first collision in Arizona. Last year, a Volvo XC90 from Uber was hit by the driver of another vehicle. The Uber was in self-driving mode when it was hit by another driver in an intersection after the vehicle failed to yield. She hit the Volvo XC90 hard enough to flip it onto its side.
Khosrowshahi was in Washington, D.C. to discuss the company’s commitment to expanding ride services in congested cities. He reiterated the company’s commitment to autonomous vehicles, saying he believed “very important part of the solution of getting rid of car ownership.”
(Click Here for more details about the self-driving Uber test vehicle killing a pedestrian.)
The company just completed a deal to acquire acquired bike-sharing service Jump. Terms of the deal were not released.
Jump is a “dockless” bike, which means users can leave them in any bike stand – as opposed to a branded stand – and they’ll be disabled until the next user comes along to rent it. The rider gets a code on their smartphone to activate the bike.
The move also pushes Uber closer to its goal of reducing car ownership, according to Khosrowshahi.
(To see more about the Uber fatality investigation, Click Here.)
“We’re committed to bringing together multiple modes of transportation within the Uber app — so that you can choose the fastest or most affordable way to get where you’re going, whether that’s in an Uber, on a bike, on the subway or more,” he wrote in a blog post.
