Uber ATG becomes high-risk among autonomous vehicle competitors

November 19, 2019 | Case Study

Uber ATG has had a rough PR week.

Recently, an independent software reviewer found that ATG is using trade secrets taken from Waymo. In response, Uber has claimed that it "will likely" need to either license the technology or build the necessary software from scratch. Both options could incur huge costs.

Last year, Elaine Herzberg was struck and killed in a collision with one of Uber ATG's autonomous vehicles in testing. Now, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released a report claiming that the vehicle was not programmed to recognize and react to pedestrians who aren't on crosswalks. The report stops short of assigning blame to the vehicle (and Uber) versus the test driver, though the NTSB is reportedly assigning that cause at a meeting on November 19.