today
uber launched the world's largest fleet
of self-driving taxis and these vehicles
are now carrying passengers around
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania just like any
other uber would the San francisco-based
company has outfitted more than a dozen
Ford Fusion cars with lasers cameras and
GPS sensors so that they can sense the
environment around them and drive safely
through all kinds of conditions
including snow and bridges and crowded
streets in the back of the car is a
screen that passengers can swipe to
begin the trip and it also displays
exactly what the car is seeing in real
time through its array of sensors while
these cars represent today's
state-of-the-art technology they are not
free of humans just yet each
self-driving car has two over employees
in front a backup driver in the driver's
seat and an engineer who takes notes on
each ride so now I'm actually going to
be able to test out one of these cars
for myself and sit behind the wheel in
one of over self-driving cars let's see
how it goes
Uber's goal is for its cars to be fully
autonomous and self-driving but right
now human intervention is still needed
sometimes as I was driving I had to keep
my hands on the wheel and watch the road
in our 10 minute ride I never needed to
take over the car but I was told to keep
my foot over the brake just in case so
here I am behind the driver's wheel so
the ride was pretty smooth the car could
use blinkers and turn brake accelerate
all that with no help from me when
you're in the driver's seat you are
supposed to keep your hands on the wheel
just in case you need to take back
control the only thing that can't do yet
is change lanes but that's coming soon
uber is still building its fleet and
plans to have dozens of self-driving
cars available to passengers in
Pittsburgh by the end of this year in
addition to the Ford fusions like the
one I wrote in they will also be
introducing self-driving Volvo's which
the company calls their second
generation of self-driving cars hurdle
to reaching level 4 full autonomy is
training computers to respond to every
potential eventualities on the roads
including distracted human drivers