Inside Uber's New Self-Driving Cars in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH--When residents here begin riding in Uber Technologies Inc.'s self-driving cars on Wednesday, they may find the robots operate like driver's-ed students. On Monday, autonomous Ford Fusions owned by Uber, manned by a backup driver and an engineer in the front seat for safety, rolled slowly and cautiously through some of the grittier neighborhoods of Pittsburgh as pedestrians curiously looked on. During a demonstration ride for The Wall Street Journal, the vehicle respected speed limits, stayed in its lane and never gunned through yellow lights. It also struggled with some obstacles and once jarringly hit the brakes. The test represents Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick's audacious vision to one day roll out an entire fleet of autonomous vehicles to replace the company's roughly 1.5 million drivers and ferry commuters, packages and food around urban centers.