Autonomous Trip Splitting Uber was founded in 2009 to make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone, using a smartphone app to connect customers with the drivers. Rapid growth saw Uber reach 100 cities internationally by April 2014. The on-demand ride-sharing service began several years before closest competitor Lyft, and was therefore able to amass a substantial market share in sector. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In August 2014, the UberEverywhere initiative was launched to expand Uber's global network and revolutionize transportation systems to make them more reliable, convenient, and accessible. The campaign was met with widespread protests against Uber from European taxi drivers. In May 2014, Google unveiled a new autonomous car prototype at Recode's Code Conference. Hours later, Uber's then-CEO openly expressed his desire to replace drivers with autonomous vehicles and outlined the potential benefits for Uber customers once this technology existed. At the time, Uber's active driver base was more than 160,000 internationally. To more quickly advance its self-driving ambitions, Uber acquired tech startup Otto and partnered with automaker Volvo in late 2016. Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer, took the helm of transportation development, Uber self-driving delivery and trucking, and the company has begun testing the vehicles. Uber launched its first self-driving Ford Fusion test car at the Advanced Technologies Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in late 2016. They claimed that the self-driving technology would minimize traffic congestion and be more convenient and accessible transportation, as well as a reduction in deaths from road accidents caused mainly by human errors. Despite Pittsburgh's initial enthusiasm to partner with Uber, the relationship soon sours, with Uber accused of poaching university staff and failing to live up to the initial agreement. The University of Arizona became the next place where Uber based its self-driving test vehicles. San Francisco soon followed, but the California Department of Motor Vehicles quickly revoked the license and Uber ended the pilot program due to disagreements over permits. More bad news was to come for Uber, after losing a legal case in the UK, which required them to classify their drivers as employees and which could have exposed the company to claims from its 40,000 British drivers who were not then rights holders of workers. subsequently, Uber lost its license to operate in London due to "public safety implications". 2017 continued to be a difficult period for Uber with a decline in US market share from 84 to 77% in response to #DeleteUber campaigns, a poor company culture and the removal of CEO Travis Kalanick who were also sued for the theft of trade secrets, with Google claiming that their circuit board was a near replica of its own and that before leaving Google, a former employee had downloaded a large amount of it. proprietary data. Later in the year one of Uber's test cars was involved in an accident in Arizona and the program was temporarily suspended until it was discovered that driver error in another car was to blame . Uber further accelerated plans for an automated fleet in2017 by committing to the purchase of 24,000 Volvo SUVs. In October, Uber cut its self-driving test vehicle staff by half, despite safety concerns expressed by employees. By the end of the year, Uber had completed 5 billion trips, had expanded to 633 cities, and its autonomous pilot program was completing an average of 80,000 miles per week. In late 2017, tech investor Softbank valued Uber at $48 billion and a future IPO was expected. In early 2018, Uber's new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, expressed belief that the company would be profitable in the next few years and that Uber automated cars would be available to the public outside of testing by 2020. A few weeks later Google and Uber have reached a legal agreement so that the race towards autonomous vehicles can continue. The company has expressed a desire to put integrity at the center of future decisions and to put measures in place to ensure its self-driving technology is created using only Uber software. In March 2018, after being involved in the first fatal crash in the United States involving a self-driving vehicle with artificial intelligence control, Uber indefinitely suspended all autonomous driving. It was revealed that prior to the accident, the pilot program had numerous issues that required far more human intervention than competing vehicles, and that staff were under pressure to provide the Uber CEO with a seamless autonomous ride on an upcoming visit to the their testing center. Uber was planning to get regulatory approval by 2018 to start a self-driving car service in Arizona, according to company documents. Guide to case questions and answers. What motivations would Uber have to develop autonomous vehicles? With large cost reductions likely for ride-sharing customers once drivers are removed from the pricing model, the implication is that self-driving vehicles will have a dramatic impact on the industry. Market share is at stake for whichever company is first to market with an autonomous commercial fleet of vehicles. Given that competitor Lyft, among others, is currently developing self-driving vehicles, the pressure for Uber is high. There are fears that competition of this nature could lead to the dissolution of their business, with Uber's Travis Kalanick previously describing the development of self-driving vehicles as "essentially existential for us". With a high valuation and an upcoming IPO planned, if Uber were to lose a significant amount of market share, it is unlikely that it would be able to maintain its current revenue and expansion in order to deliver the projected return that investors expect . Replacing drivers with driverless vehicles will allow Uber to increase revenue while simultaneously reducing payments to drivers, resulting in increased profitability. Considering that Uber has raised billions of dollars since 2009, there is a lot at stake for them financially. Legally, Uber's goal of replacing human drivers with self-driving technology may not be problematic, but is such large-scale redundancy ethical? Questions Those surrounding who are responsible for the fallout from unemployment or underemployment caused by technology are incredibly complex and extend beyond the boundaries of business and economics into the sociological, political and philosophical realms. While not a legal responsibility, it would be ethically useful for Uber to contribute to the complex research on unemployment or underemployment caused by.