Autonomous Uber That Crashed in Arizona May Have Been Less Innocent Than Previously Thought

The recent collision in Tempe, Arizona, where an Uber Technologies driverless Volvo collided with another vehicle before rolling onto its side, might not have been as cut and dried as it originally seemed. While the Tempe Police Department originally deemed the autonomous car not to be at fault, the incident report suggest that it might have been taking the same sort of risks that any inattentive flesh-based operator might have.

EE Times obtained copies of the police report and reached out to Mike Demler, senior analyst at The Linley Group, to make sense of exactly what happened at the scene. The popular assumption was that a Ford Edge failed to yield during a left hand turn, impacting with the Volvo XC90 test vehicle and forcing it onto its side.

That’s not quite how it happened.

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  • ToolGuy The only way this makes sense to me (still looking) is if it is tied to the realization that they have a capital issue (cash crunch) which is getting in the way of their plans.
  • Jeff I do think this is a good thing. Teaching salespeople how to interact with the customer and teaching them some of the features and technical stuff of the vehicles is important.
  • MKizzy If Tesla stops maintaining and expanding the Superchargers at current levels, imagine the chaos as more EV owners with high expectations visit crowded and no longer reliable Superchargers.It feels like at this point, Musk is nearly bored enough with Tesla and EVs in general to literally take his ball and going home.
  • Incog99 I bought a brand new 4 on the floor 240SX coupe in 1989 in pearl green. I drove it almost 200k miles, put in a killer sound system and never wish I sold it. I graduated to an Infiniti Q45 next and that tank was amazing.
  • CanadaCraig As an aside... you are so incredibly vulnerable as you're sitting there WAITING for you EV to charge. It freaks me out.