With demand for car-sharing and ride-sharing diminishing sharply, companies are shifting their focus to using driverless vehicles to deliver goods before they ferry people – a reversal of a robo-taxi future envisioned just a few years ago, courtesy of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Ford Motor Co. is postponing the commercial deployment of its autonomous vehicles. Waymo had to temporarily suspend its on-road testing and its ride-hailing offerings in Arizona. Uber recently announced layoffs of 3,500, citing the pandemic.
General Motors is shutting down Maven, the car-sharing service that debuted in 2016 as the wave of the future. COVID-19 is changing how people perceive mass transit, and that shapes how GM will develop vehicles like the Origin, which is designed to transport many people.
Read the article at The Detroit News.
