Hyundai is set to release a fleet of robo-taxis on the public streets of Irvine, California next week. Although the crossovers will be equipped with a self-driving system from Chinese startup Pony.ai, a human will be seated at the wheel during this trial. The South Korean carmaker is using what it deems'BotRide' to study how people behave in an autonomous ride share. Hyundai is set to release a fleet of robo-taxis on the public streets of Irvine, California next week. Although the crossovers will be equipped with a self-driving system from Chinese startup Pony.ai, a human will be seated at the wheel during this trial To summon the robotic vehicle, customers will order rides through a smartphone app, which will direct passengers to nearby stops for pickup and drop-off.

Canada is celebrating a technological milestone after its first official self-driving car test on public roads last week. The street test was conducted in Ottawa's west end using technology developed by Blackberry. The city of Ottawa announced a partnership with Blackberry's QNX team, the operating system arm of the company which is developing self-driving vehicle software. "With support from BlackBerry QNX and its Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Center and by working closely with all our partners, we are facilitating smart initiatives and research, and fuelling innovation and job creation in Ottawa," said the city's mayor, Jim Watson in a press release. The test was not run in real-life conditions as the roads were closed during the demonstration.

General Motors President Dan Ammann urged more local and state governments to allow testing of autonomous vehicles on public streets, saying doing so is the only way to ensure they will be ready for public use. "To make autonomous vehicles the best they can be and the safest they can be, we really need to be testing on public streets," Ammann said during an address to the Economic Club of Chicago at the Chicago Auto Show. "It can be limited to a geo-fenced area, but it needs to be public streets in a real world environment." Ammann said the development of autonomous vehicles is in the public interest, citing the numerous safety and quality of life benefits they can produce. GM has invested heavily in the development of self-driving vehicles, most notably buying the autonomous tech startup Cruise Automation last year, reportedly for $1 billion.

Uber is at it again. The company, famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view) for flouting regulations as it built its disruptive, multi-billion-dollar business, rolled out a fleet of autonomous cars in San Francisco this week despite an explicit warning from the Department of Motor Vehicles that testing on public roads was illegal without a permit. Never mind that 20 of Uber's competitors in the race to develop autonomous cars have followed the California DMV's rules and gotten testing permits. Never mind that new federal guidelines for the safe operation of autonomous vehicles anticipate that car companies will get a state's permission before testing driverless technology on its public roads. Never mind that Uber's executives were told by DMV officials before the launch that the company would need a permit to operate its autonomous vehicles.