Major transportation network company, Uber has stated that it believes it will be a while until its self-driving cars are ready for wide-scale deployment.
Chief scientist at Uber Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) Raquel Urtasun spoke about the challenges for self-driving development at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York.
Reuters reports that Urtasun said, ‘Self-driving cars are going to be in our lives. The question of when is not clear yet,” Urtasun said. “To have it at scale is going to take a long time.’
Urtasun’s comments fall in line with the rest of the self-driving industry, which after much hype and bold promises has tempered expectations and pushed out timelines for deployment, says Reuters.
According to Reuters, the progress of Uber’s self-driving car unit is in the spotlight as the company prepares to kick off its initial public offering this year. Uber, whose losses before taxes, depreciation and other expenses were $1.8 billion last year, has at times spent close to $200 million in a single quarter on its self-driving unit.
Urtasun declined to offer any guidance on what mix of human-driven cars and autonomous cars Uber will have in the next 10 years, citing too many uncertainties in the industry.
‘What is clear is that in a 10-year time frame there will be a mix of both (self-driving and human-controlled cars),’ concluded Urtasun.
