Chinese BYD and the American taxi service Uber will jointly throw money at a project that will put 100,000 cars on the roads. Later they may become self-sufficient.
It is not something that private drivers as such benefit from when BYD and taxi service Uber join forces in a collaboration for 100,000 cars.
At least not at first. Instead, the Sino-American collaboration will result in cars that Uber can send around Europe and Latin America.
– When an Uber driver switches to an electric car, the environmental benefit is up to four times higher than when a private driver does it, because the drivers drive so much, says Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a press release .
It is not known exactly how many cars Uber and BYD actually intend the collaboration to result in. But the idea is that the cars should be self-driving 'when the technology is mature'.
READ ALSO: Danish car brand makes its first profit since 2018
In addition, the cooperation between the two companies is to be expanded to also include the Middle East, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the future.
The idea is that Uber will initially offer European and Latin American drivers the financing of the electric cars on 'best in class' terms.
However, we are far from self-driving cars. The self-coring technology that is on the market now is mostly at level 2 out of 5 possible. Something Ford i.a. just got the green light to let loose in Denmark. Read more about it here .
This means that owners of the Mustang Mach-E in Denmark can now effectively let the car drive itself without holding the steering wheel. However, BlueCruise is far from being fully self-sufficient.
The system is specifically at level two out of five in self-coring technology. This means that the driver can let go of the steering wheel, but must still keep his eyes and thus his attention on the traffic.
Mercedes, on the other hand, has been allowed to drive around with cars where the self-driving technology is at level 3. This currently only applies in parts of the USA and Germany.
Read more exciting news from and about the world of cars right here!
