California DMV Calls Uber’s Autonomous Autos ‘Illegal’

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     California DMV Calls Uber's Autonomous Autos 'Illegal' – Wall Street Journal

     December 15, 2016 by admin
     
     
     
     
     Updated Dec. 14, 2016 10:02 p.m. ET
     
     
     Uber Technologies Inc. is barreling ahead with testing autonomous cars in San Francisco despite stiff opposition from the state of California, which called the company’s experiment illegal and threatened to sue.
     The car-hailing firm on Wednesday said San Francisco residents could now hail a handful of autonomous vehicles within city limits, expanding a test that began three months ago in Pittsburgh.
     Later in the day, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles told Uber it was operating autonomous vehicles without a necessary permit and could face legal action unless it takes the autos off the road. Uber executives say they believed a permit wasn’t required since the retrofitted sport-utility vehicles are manned by a driver and engineer in the front seats and therefore aren’t fully autonomous.
     The kerfuffle fits a pattern with Uber, which has historically pushed into new markets and established a base of customers before seeking permission from local regulators. In Portland, Ore., for instance, it began operating its ride-hailing service there in 2014 despite local regulations that prohibited ride-sharing apps, leading to the city banning the UberX service while it rewrote rules. The city later reinstated Uber’s service.
     
     
     “It is illegal for the company to operate its self-driving vehicles on public roads until it receives an autonomous vehicle testing permit,” wrote Brian Soublet, chief counsel for the California DMV in a strongly worded letter to Anthony Levandowski, who oversees Uber’s autonomous group. “If Uber does not confirm immediately that it will stop its launch and seek a testing permit, DMV will initiate legal action.”
     An Uber spokesman didn’t have immediate comment Wednesday on the DMV letter.
     
     
     “Based on how the car is operating and used, we feel strongly the car is not an autonomous vehicle,” said Lior Ron, senior director of engineering for Uber’s Advanced Technology Group, during a presentation with journalists Tuesday.
     California requires companies testing autonomous cars—defined as having technology capable of “operating or driving the vehicle without active physical control or monitoring of a natural person”—to have a permit issued by the state and to have a test driver who is able to take over driving.
     Mr. Soublet in a call with reporters Wednesday dismissed Uber’s argument that the car isn’t self-driving because a human is behind the wheel taking control. “They’ve equipped the vehicles with technology that allows them to operate autonomously and that’s the key,” Mr. Soublet said.
     In his letter to Uber, Mr. Soublet said 20 companies—including Alphabet Inc.’s Google—are approved to test a total of 130 self-driving vehicles that are being driven by more than 480 permitted test drivers in California. “They are obeying the law and are responsibly testing and advancing their technology,” he wrote.
     Uber may be balking at disclosure requirements from the DMV as part of its permitting process. The department said companies with an autonomous vehicle permit are required to hand over accident reports within 10 days of an incident and to disclose how many times humans had to take the wheel, both of which are available for public inspection.
     Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina assistant professor of law and expert on autonomous car law, said Uber may have a plausible argument as the law allows some interpretation. Still, he said in an email, Uber’s actions are “in tension with the law if interpreted in context. This was a law intended to apply to aspirationally autonomous vehicles. It was in large part about building trust, and Uber is not building any trust in its systems or practices by doing this.”
     The fight with California over permits was magnified on Wednesday when a video of a self-driving Uber car running a red light was captured by a San Francisco taxi cab’s camera and posted to the internet. Some people in San Francisco reported online seeing the Uber vehicles lurching through intersections.
     “These incidents were due to human error,” an Uber spokeswoman said. “These vehicles were not part of the pilot and were not carrying customers. The drivers involved have been suspended while we continue to investigate.”
     On a roughly two-mile demonstration in San Francisco on Tuesday, the car mostly operated on its own, without driver intervention. Stuck behind an idling mail truck, though, the Uber driver had to take hold of the wheel to pilot the SUV around it. The vehicle waited longer than a human might after a group of children crossed the street, prompting a honk from a waiting driver.
     Later, the vehicle edged out a minivan hoping to merge into its lane, perhaps a sign of programmed defensiveness.
     Uber said about five vehicles would be on San Francisco streets at first, and that it would add more in the coming weeks. Only people with credit-card accounts tied to a San Francisco address would be eligible to ride in the vehicles, modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicles owned by Uber.
     The experiment casts the San Francisco Bay Area as the focal point for autonomous vehicles, which many believe to be the future of transportation and logistics. Google has been testing its autonomous vehicles since 2009, while Tesla, Lyft Inc. and a host of Silicon Valley companies are working to get their own driverless vehicles on the road.
     Write to Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com and Tim Higgins at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com