Since when did the global fleet of robotaxis not enter its new dawn? For, it seems that each and every time, too often, there are new developments introduced for robotaxis.
Such as this, wherein Uber has officially unveiled details about its AV Labs division. Here’s the scoop.
Uber’s newsroom official recently wrote, “For more than a decade, Uber has worked to make transportation more accessible, reliable, and safe around the world. Autonomous vehicles are an important part of that future — not as a winner-take-all product, but as a way to make the benefits of autonomy easier to access for more people, faster. That’s why we’re launching AV Labs…”
Rather than robotaxis in their full form, AV Labs, Uber reiterated, is a fresh team focused on accelerating the autonomy ecosystem through unlocking the most difficult issue that the industry is facing today: “a data flywheel that covers real-world, long-tail driving scenarios.”
So, it’s more of ridesharing and technology dancing, or flying, together.
This is why publications like TechCrunch are sharing their take on this matter – too early, too advanced, or just right?
TechCrunch correspondent Sean O’Kane started it this way, “Uber has more than 20 autonomous vehicle partners, and they all want one thing: data. So the company says it’s going to make that available through a new division called Uber AV Labs. Despite the name, Uber is not returning to developing its own robotaxis, which it stopped doing after one of its test vehicles killed a pedestrian in 2018.”
Does that match how Uber wants this to happen?
Uber goes on to say that AV Labs is meant to address the issues that millions of Uber trips encounter “across cities, suburbs, airports, restaurants and complex environments—day and night, in all kinds of conditions.”
The ridesharing app stated that this AV Labs division will work on the next chapter of autonomy for a learner, faster, and a more multi-disciplinary team.
“AV Labs brings together experts across data, machine learning, computer vision, systems, and infrastructure to turn real-world operations into high-quality data that helps autonomous systems learn faster and perform better,” Uber told Ridesharing Forum.
So, for the most part, TechCrunch is in support of this move.
The chief technology officer of Uber, Praveen Neppalli Naga, stated that getting access to a bigger pool of driving data could help robotaxi companies solve problems before or as they creep up.
“Our goal, primarily, is to democratize this data, right? I mean, the value of this data and having partners’ AV tech advancing is far bigger than the money we can make from this,” he further noted.
Right now, the initiative is in the toddler phase. AV Labs is actively hiring engineers and researchers wanting to work closely with the learning core of this autonomy and help shape things that come next, according to Uber.
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