{"id":336770,"date":"2017-03-25T18:38:19","date_gmt":"2017-03-25T10:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1468927"},"modified":"2017-03-25T18:38:19","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T10:38:19","slug":"uber-self-driving-test-car-involved-in-crash-in-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/uber-self-driving-test-car-involved-in-crash-in-arizona\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber self-driving test car involved in crash in Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

More bad news for Uber: one of the ride-hailing giant\u2019s self-driving Volvo SUVs has been involved in a crash in Arizona \u2014 apparently leaving the vehicle flipped onto its side, and with damage to at least two other human-driven\u00a0cars in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

The aftermath of the accident\u00a0is\u00a0pictured in photos<\/a> and a video<\/a> posted to Twitter by a user of\u00a0@FrescoNews<\/a>, a service for\u00a0selling content to news outlets. According to the\u00a0company\u2019s tweets, the collision happened in Tempe, Arizona, and\u00a0no injuries have yet been reported.<\/p>\n

Uber has also confirmed the accident and the veracity of the photos\u00a0to Bloomberg<\/a>. We\u2019ve reached out to the company with questions and will update this story with any response.<\/p>\n

The third-gen self-driving test cars were redeployed to Arizona from San Francisco in December<\/a>, after Uber refused to bend to California regulators\u2019 will and\u00a0seek a permit for testing autonomous driving in the state. It\u00a0claimed it does not need the permit as all its self-driving test vehicles have a human driver in them too.<\/p>\n

Arizona state Governor Doug Ducey tweeted<\/a> at the time that the region welcomed \u201cthis kind of technology & innovation\u201d. Ducey does not as yet appear to have made any public statements regarding today\u2019s\u00a0Uber accident.<\/p>\n

Given that the Uber vehicle has flipped onto its side it looks to be a high speed crash, which suggests a pretty serious incident\u00a0versus the mostly\u00a0minor accidents<\/a>\u00a0detailed by Google\u2019s longer-lived self-driving car unit, Waymo, such as low speed rear-end shunts of the vehicles (by\u00a0human-powered cars driving behind them).<\/p>\n

Another concerning incident involving an Uber self-driving car occurred last December in California when one of its\u00a0vehicles ran a red light \u2014 though Uber blamed\u00a0this\u00a0on human error<\/a>, rather than\u00a0the fault of the\u00a0self-driving tech. (Although a\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0report, citing two Uber sources, claimed\u00a0the opposite.)<\/p>\n

Leaked internal documents<\/a> have also suggested Uber\u2019s\u00a0self-driving technology isn\u2019t making\u00a0steady\u00a0improvements.<\/p>\n

In February<\/a>, the head of Uber\u2019s self-drive program \u2014 who is himself being sued for allegedly stealing technology from Google\u2019s Waymo, where he used to work, and using it to set up Otto, the self-driving truck startup that\u00a0Uber acquired in August<\/a> last year \u2014 confirmed Uber has 12 self-driving cars apiece on the roads in\u00a0Phoenix and Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month<\/a>\u00a0a New York Times report also claimed\u00a0the company\u00a0was using a\u00a0proprietary software tool to deny\u00a0rides to members of code enforcement authorities\u00a0or city officials that\u00a0were\u00a0attempting to gather data about Uber offering service where it\u2019s currently prohibited. The company has since said<\/a> it is reviewing use of the tool \u2014 which it claims can be used for \u201cmany purposes\u201d.<\/p>\n

The company is also facing a storm of controversy over allegations of systemic sexism<\/a> poisoning its corporate culture \u2014 with\u00a0president Jeff Jones leaving<\/a>\u00a0in recent days, and reports that Uber\u00a0denied recruiters diversity data<\/a>, piling more pressure on founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" More bad news for Uber: one of the ride-hailing giant’s self-driving Volvo SUVs has been involved in a crash in Arizona — apparently leaving the vehicle flipped onto its side, and with damage to at least two other human-driven cars in the vicinity. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-336770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}