San Francisco, July 31 (IANS) Global cab-hailing platform Uber has stopped developing self-driving trucks as the programme was no longer competitive in the freight shipping industry, the company announced.
Uber said on Monday that it wants to refocus on the self-driving car programme, which was halted following a crash in which a Uber autonomous car killed a pedestrian in Arizona in March, reports Xinhua news agency.
Employees in the San Francisco-based self-driving truck division will be relocated to other internal units, including the Pittsburgh-based self-driving car programme.
Despite the shutdown, Uber Freight, a business unit that helps match truck drivers with shipping companies, will not be affected.
Uber ventured into driverless vehicles in early 2015.
Controversy was aroused when it purchased Otto, a self-driving truck startup founded by a former Google engineer, in 2016.
Google later accused the engineer of stealing confidential files before he left the company.
–IANS<br>ksk
Source: IANS
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