Economy
CityLab Daily: Uber Dramatically Scales Back on Self-Driving Car Testing
Also: America’s “Robot Belt,” and the rise and fall of the family road trip.
Pitt stop: On Wednesday, Uber laid off more than 100 employees who piloted its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. The move signals a dramatic scaling back of the company’s autonomous vehicle testing, coming four months after one of Uber’s AVs struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Testing is set to resume on much more limited routes in August; in Pittsburgh, sources say the AVs will only operate autonomously on a suburban test track and along a set route to HQ.
CityLab’s Laura Bliss has the story on what this means for the future of autonomous car testing: Uber Just Laid Off Its Pittsburgh Autonomous Car Drivers