Staff Writer
Revolutionary
taxi-hailing app Uber has announced that it will begin to develop driverless
cabs to pick up customers. The majority of Uber’s costs of operation comes from
driver salary, so eliminating this end of the industry would provide a major
boost to the company’s profits and reduce the cost to consumers. Uber will
partner with Carnegie Mellon University on a research lab in Pittsburgh to
research the development of its new cars.
The
announcement means Uber will now be a part of the driverless car development
race led by major automakers, and comes on the heels of Google’s report that it
will begin working on a cab hailing app of its own that could also feature
driverless cars. However, experts still say that the futuristic cars are a long
way off because of the high costs of production and lack of regulation.
