Less than a week after Uber said that it will keep testing its self-driving vehicles in San Francisco despite being told to stop by California's Department of Motor Vehicles, the ride-sharing company is now being forced to take the cars off the city's roads.
Uber defied the orders of the California DMV to apply for a testing permit for its self-driving cars in San Francisco, claiming that the company does not need such permits. A pair of technicians will be inside the self-driving cars at all times, a characteristic which Uber claims makes it unnecessary for the company to acquire testing permits for the vehicles.
California DMV Revokes Registration Of Uber's Self-Driving Cars
Uber is now pulling out its self-driving cars from the public roads of San Francisco after showing stubbornness last week on continuing the testing of the vehicles. What happened for Uber to change its mind on the matter?
The reversal of Uber's plans was due to the move by the California DMV to revoke the registration of the 16 self-driving cars that the company was testing in the city. According to the department, in a letter to Uber, the registration of the 16 cars were being revoked because it was determined that they were not properly issued.
The California DMV said that the vehicles were not properly marked as test cars for self-driving technology. With the revoking of the registration of the vehicles, California regulators were able to settle the dispute with Uber once and for all, in favor of the state.
Uber's Self-Driving Car Testing To Continue
The launch of Uber's self-driving cars in San Francisco came after it successfully started such a program in Pittsburgh. The testing allows passengers to use the ride-sharing service's app to hail a self-driving vehicle to get them to their destination. For San Francisco, Uber was using modified Volvo XC90 SUVs.
If Uber still wants to test self-driving cars in San Francisco or in any other city in California, it will now have to properly follow the requirements of the state for the testing of self-driving vehicles. The letter sent to Uber even contained a link to the application of the necessary $150 permit, along with a promise that a team from the California DMV will be made available to assist Uber.
In a statement, Uber said that it remains committed to deploying tests of self-driving cars in California but added that it is now looking at possible locations where it can re-deploy the vehicles that it pulled out from the roads of San Francisco.
