Uber's former self-driving chief still believes in dream of safer roads

The former head of Uber's self-driving car operations urged the entire industry to keep working through what he called a “tough moment” to achieve safer streets and roads for all.

John Bares, who left Uber in August and returned to Carnegie Robotics, said he has not lost faith in Uber or the promise of autonomous vehicles.

“The company and the dream of the employees is a mode of transportation that is safer and more efficient for everyone, and clearly events like this are a huge step back, but the dream is still there,” Bares said. “And we're going to get there.”

Elaine Herzberg was killed March 18 when a self-driving Uber crashed into her as she walked her bike across a street in Tempe, Ariz. Herzberg, 49, is believed to be the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car.

Uber suspended its testing of self-driving cars in Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto following the crash. The fleets remained grounded Monday, more than a week later, as the investigation into the crash continues.

Tempe police and officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. Uber has said it is cooperating with the investigation.

The crash threw the self-driving car industry into a tailspin with critics asking whether development of autonomous vehicles is worth the risk it poses to pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists as these cars are tested on city streets. Bares said the crash caused pain and difficult conversations not just at Uber but across the many companies working in the field.

More than 40,000 people died in traffic crashes in 2017. It's a statistic that nearly anyone involved in self-driving cars knows by heart and is working to lower.

“It's going to be tough on people emotionally,” Bares said. “As an industry, we have to pull through. For the longer good of humanity, we have to pull through.”

Toyota announced last week it was halting its self-driving operations in the wake of the crash. Boston's mayor last year asked nuTonomy and Optimus Ride, two self-driving car companies testing in the city, to pause testing. Hyundai, which partnered with Aurora Innovation this year to develop self-driving cars, said it is cautious about mass producing autonomous vehicles, according to Reuters .

Aptiv, which bought nuTonomy last year and has a large engineering center in Pittsburgh where it is developing self-driving technology, did not stop tests in Las Vegas and elsewhere, a company spokesman said. Argo AI, which is testing cars in Pittsburgh for Ford, has also continued testing, a Ford spokesman said.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik, talking about the Tempe crash over the weekend at the National Automobile Dealers Association in Las Vegas, said its self-driving car could have “handled that situation,” according to Forbes . Waymo, Google's self-driving car company, is planning to begin an autonomous car service with no driver behind the wheel in the Phoenix area this year.

Raj Rajkumar, a long-time autonomous vehicles researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, told USA Today that the Uber's lidar and sensors should have picked up the woman long before the car hit her.

“Clearly there's a problem,” Rajkumar said. “Maybe it's the sensors not working correctly or the hardware that processes it, or the software.”

In an email to Bloomberg , Marta Thoma Hall, the president of Velodyne, which makes the lidar sensors used by Uber, wrote the crash “baffled” the company.

“Certainly, our lidar is capable of clearly imaging Elaine and her bicycle in this situation. However, our lidar doesn't make the decision to put on the brakes or get out of her way.”

The New York Times reported that Uber's tests in Arizona were struggling and the team was scrambling to prepare for an upcoming visit from new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who at first wanted to shutter the self-driving car project. The safety driver inside an Uber had to take control more often than the company would like.

Bares said he was not concerned about Uber's self-driving program when he left.

Uber lured Bares away from Carnegie Robotics, a company he helped found, to start its Advanced Technologies Group. Improving safety and saving lives has been at the core of Bares' nearly 40 years of work in robotics. In the early 1980s, Bares worked on robots that went into Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station after its partial meltdown. Carnegie Robotics designed robots to detect land mines and improvised explosive devices. At Uber, Bares wanted to prevent traffic deaths and injuries.

“Can we make our roads safer?” Bares asked in a 2016 interview . “That's the thing that tugs me, and I think we can do that over time.”

Bares left Uber in August and returned to Carnegie Robotics. He said he was thrilled with his time at Uber. He said Uber's operation grew to the point where he wanted to return to the small company he helped start.

Aaron Aupperlee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at aaupperlee@tribweb.com, 412-336-8448 or via Twitter @tinynotebook.