Uber dismissed warnings about its illegal self-driving test for months, emails show

Last December, Uber’s self-driving cars hit the rain-slicked streets of San Francisco with much fanfare. It was meant to be a watershed moment — the upstart ride-hail company bringing autonomous driving to its city of origin, years before most experts predicted we’d begin to see self-driving cars en masse.
But it turned out to be a total flop. A week after Uber’s fleet of 16 luxury Volvo XC90 SUVs started picking up passengers, the program was brought to a grinding halt.