Uber does not plan to continue testing autonomous cars in California as it faces fallout from one of its self-driving vehicles killing a pedestrian in Arizona. While Uber announced shortly after the accident that it would suspend its autonomous vehicle testing nationwide, a letter from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) relayed the raid-hailing giant's plans to discontinue testing in California for the foreseeable future. "Uber has indicated that it will not renew its current permit to test autonomous vehicles in California", says a letter from deputy DMV director Brian Soublet to Uber. The company's authority to drive autonomous cars on public roads in California, first granted last March, expires at the end of this month. If it wants to secure a new permit after that, Mr Soublet wrote, the company "will need to address any follow-up analysis to investigations" from the Arizona crash.

This week, a self-driving Volvo owned by Uber struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. We won't know the exact details of what happened until much later once Uber, the local police, and the federal government have completed their investigations. But the tragedy has opened up many questions about how self-driving car technology works, and particularly how well these robotic cars can see what's happening around them. Alex Davies and Aarian Marshall from WIRED's transportation desk join us this week to talk about autonomous vehicle safety, Lidar, street design, and the human component. The crash comes at a time when pedestrian deaths are spiking.