Uber’s self-driving car crashes and flips in Arizona

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By Matthew Griffin Future Transport 25th March 2017

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Technology takes time to perfect, but in an age where sci-fi keeps becoming sci-fact it’s easy to forget it has flaws

A self-driving car operated by Uber was involved in a crash earlier this morning in Tempe, Arizona, in what is just one of a series of dramatic setbacks for the king of start ups.

Uber’s self-driving car program has also been mired in controversy, and this incident is by no means the first with others reported in San Francisco last year where Uber’s self-driving cars ran red lights – something which, in the end, was attributed to the technology rather than the drivers, as Uber had originally claimed.

Meanwhile Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving business, sued an Uber unit called Otto earlier this year for allegedly stealing designs for an important component of driverless cars known as lidar. Uber called the suit “baseless.”

The photo, showing the Uber SUV on its side, suggests a relatively high-impact crash. That would be a contrast to the incidents involving self-driving cars tested by Waymo. In more than two million miles of testing on public roads, Waymo’s vehicles were mostly minor incidents, often when other cars drove into the back of their vehicles in busy areas.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath, is one of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts. A serial entrepreneur Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. 13 times author of the Codex of the Future series, Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Pepsi Co, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.