Uber to put 500 data-collection vehicles on the road this year
Key takeaways
- Uber revealed on Wednesday a prototype car that it plans to use to scoop up real-world driving data that can be used by its growing list of autonomous vehicle partners such as Avride, Waymo, and We Ride.
- Rather, it s a Hyundai Ioniq 5 fitted with an incredible number of sensors on the top and sides, as the company first told Tech Crunch back in January.
- This is the first vehicle Uber has assembled itself (with help from a partner) since the company sold its autonomous vehicle division to Aurora in 2020.
Uber revealed on Wednesday a prototype car that it plans to use to scoop up real-world driving data that can be used by its growing list of autonomous vehicle partners such as Avride, Waymo, and We Ride.
The vehicle is not some radical design. Rather, it s a Hyundai Ioniq 5 fitted with an incredible number of sensors on the top and sides, as the company first told Tech Crunch back in January. The sensor-laden vehicle may not look particularly groundbreaking, but it does mark a few milestones for the company.
This is the first vehicle Uber has assembled itself (with help from a partner) since the company sold its autonomous vehicle division to Aurora in 2020. It also represents progress on Uber s new AV Labs division, which launched earlier this year to use sensor-equipped Uber cars to collect and then share data with its 30-and-counting autonomous vehicle technology partners.