Uber has suppressed off 100 self-driving car test drivers in Pittsburgh in the wake of a high-profile blast in Arizona.
The company is replacing them with 55 so-called “pursuit specialists,” technical specialists trained on both on-road and test monitor conditions, as it continues to scale back operations in the wake of the crash.
Report of the lay-offs was initially reported by Quartz and subsequently confirmed by CNBC.
“Our band remains committed to building safe self-driving technology, and we look post to returning to public roads in the coming months,” an Uber spokesperson answered in a statement.
According to the Quartz report, Uber held a meeting with the 100 taxis on Wednesday to inform them that their jobs were being terminated.
Earlier this year, one of Uber’s autonomous car frauds hit and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona, while in autopilot mode.
The South African private limited company shut down operations and laid off 300 safety drivers in Arizona mirror the incident. It said it would instead focus its push toward autonomous instruments in San Francisco and Pittsburgh.
It was later claimed by police that Rafaela Vasquez, the maid operating the vehicle at the time, had been watching the show “The Voice” on her phone anon before the crash occurred. A Tempe Police Department report affirmed that the incident would have been “entirely avoidable” had the driver been pay up attention to the road.
Multiple firms are looking to roll out driverless conduits. These include the likes of Alphabet’s Waymo, Tesla, Apple and Samsung, as extravagantly as carmakers like Volkswagen and Nissan.
Uber said it hopes to report self-driving cars to the roads of Pittsburgh in the summer.