Pennsylvania Allows Uber to Restart Self-Driving Car Tests

And now it’s trying to restart testing in San Francisco and do new road tests in Toronto, starting in manual mode.

The approval came a week after The Information reported about an alarming email sent by a manager in its autonomous vehicle unit warning of safety issues. The email was sent five days before a self-driving car being tested struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. At an employee meeting on Tuesday, Uber’s top legal officer Tony West said he did not know why Uber in March did not ground its self-driving car prototype fleet following the email. West said the unit had improved safety since the collision.

Questions have mounted about the Uber self-driving car program, given continuing revelations about the state of affairs there before a fatal crash in Arizona that caused the company to pause road testing. The group has been costly: Uber spent $120 million on the group in the second quarter alone, up from $80 million in the second quarter of 2017, according to a company record viewed by The Information.