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Uber releases fleet of self-driving vehicles to select few in Pittsburgh

Starting today, a select group of Uber users in Pittsburgh, PA will have the ability to request a self-driving vehicle. If a self-driving vehicle is in the area, Uber will send it, as well as a safety driver, to drive loyal customers to their destination. The announcement to give customers the opportunity to get a ride in one of Uber's self-driving vehicles comes roughly a year and a half after the company set up its Advanced Technologies Center in the city. On Tuesday, the company offered a few members of the press the opportunity to ride in one of the company's self-driving cars. The fleet, despite Uber's collaboration with Volvo, was comprised of 14 Ford Fusions equipped with a host of self-driving technology, reports TechCrunch. Uber is giving away free rides as a way to obtain real-world testing, which is crucial for self-driving technology. Recently, nuTonomoy beat Uber to the punch by launching the world's first autonomous taxis in Singapore. While the choice to release its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh mainly comes down to the fact that its ATC is located there, the city faces four seasons and its difficult streets that are comprised of bridges, railroad lines, and an irregular grid layout will prove to be a challenge for the autonomous cars. Since the self-driving vehicles are still being tested, the cars will come with two full-time Uber employees. One employee will loosely grasp the car's steering wheel, ready to take over if something goes awry, while the other will monitor the computer's software. As TechCrunch points out, Uber's autonomous vehicles drove in a similar manner to a regular driver. It obeyed traffic laws, mimicked a driver by coming to stops gently and at other times abruptly, as well as driving slightly into another lane to dodge a poorly-parked vehicle, reports TechCrunch. There's no word on whether regular Uber customers will get a ride in one of the company's Fusions or one of the Volvo's that its working on. Automakers and companies alike have been in a race to put autonomous vehicles on the road. Tesla recently updated its Autopilot system, Apple laid off dozens of employees to reboot its self-driving car project, and Google is working giving its autonomous vehicle the ability to detect emergency vehicles. While this is a large step for Uber, vehicles with autonomous capabilities still have a long way to go.

Volvo teases minimalist, no-button EX90 interior

The march to the November 9 reveal of the Volvo EX90 takes its next step with these renderings of a pared down interior. We'll see soon how it looks once the new materials, textures, colors, and tunnel console are added, but for the moment, there are four elements: An instrument panel with a demure HVAC vent, broken up by a steering wheel, a small, uncovered screen behind the wheel, and an infotainment screen. The portrait-oriented tablet carries over from current Volvo design, so too a three-spoke wheel. Everything else in Volvo's current interior schemes is thrown out, including the knobs and buttons on the center console. It looks like the premium brand's version of the interior we were introduced to in the Polestar 3. Fitting, since both vehicles will ride on the same platform and be built at the same U.S. plant.  The cabin's physical design and the car's technology share a same philosophy, which is, "What you need, when you need it." Volvo says that the sensor suite around the EX90 will give the car a 360-view of what's happening outside and inside the car. " Thomas Stovicek, head of UX at Volvo Cars, said, "Since the car also understands its surroundings and you better than ever before, we can create an even safer situation by reducing mode confusion, distraction and information overload." On the infotainment side, we're told this will be done by the vehicle providing contextual options and menus on the two screens. The center screen, which looks larger than the current XC90 unit, performs the roles we've come to expect of it. Autocar spoke with automaker developers and said the screen "will also show information based on context. If you’re simply driving along, a bar near the bottom of the screen will show media information; if youÂ’re on a call, it will show other controls; if itÂ’s cold, it may show the defrost button, etc." This situational knowledge will be especially important as more roads are opened up to hands-free driving and as self-driving capabilities become more capable. Swedish engineers point to the handover from hands-free and autonomous driving back to hands-on driving as a crucial moment. It wants to make that handoff "effortless and intuitive." The display behind the steering wheel is where the driver will go first for traditional info like speed and range, also to understand the operational state of the driver aids.

Polestar says goodbye to Volvo C30 in video tribute

The Volvo C30 was put to its eternal bed a few months ago, but the tuners at Polestar have a little more eulogizing to do. The Swedish house of speed that has raced and reworked the little hatch since its introduction in 2006 wants the world to know what they've been through together, so it has encapsulated seven years of around-the-world action into three minutes and 28 seconds of track footage and champagne.
We're still waiting on word of a replacement for the funny little hatch, and while we lament what could have been, the video below proves that the C30 provided plenty of thrills for those outside of the US. And as you can read in our recent review of the Polestar-enhanced road-going C30, it provided a decent amount of fun for those of us in the States, as well.