Department of Motor Vehicles, California has granted a permit to the ride hailing-company to test its self-driving cars on public roads. The multinational giant was developing an autonomous program to be the next step in its business plan before the horrendous car accident of its fleet. It then drastically scaled back its self-driving car project in yhe face of public and government concerns.
Travis Kalanick, co-founder Uber is leaving the board effective Dec. 31. Kalanick was removed as CEO in 2017 but remained a director. He has dumped practically all his stake in Uber since the company’s stock lockup period expired in November. It’s unclear how much Kalanick’s total stake is worth, but the latest public filings show it’s about $2.5 billion.
Uber has confirmed that it is working on a safety feature that will record audio in all rides. The feature will be piloted in some Brazilian and Mexican cities next month. The new audio-recording feature will allow drivers to automatically record all rides. Riders will also be able to activate the feature via the app’s safety toolkit before entering the car.
Airlift, a ride-hailing startup which connects passengers with buses on fixed-rate, just raised $12 million for their Series A financing. This funding is the largest ever for a Pakistani startup and so far one of the largest raised by any startup within the South Asian region. Currently, Airlift is operating in Lahore and Karachi only.