Documents Reveal Arizona Governor and Uber Kept Self-Driving Cars ‘Secret’

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey encouraged Uber to test its self-driving cars in the state without informing the public and with “limited oversight from experts,” according to emails obtained by The Guardian. According to the newspaper, Uber began to “quietly” test autonomous vehicles in Phoenix in August 2016 with the company requesting from the governor’s office the contact information of someone “discreet” at a police station. Emails show that Uber and Ducey’s relationship started back in 2007. In 2015, Ducey issued an executive order allowing for the operation of self-driving cars on university campuses the same day that Uber donated $25,000 to a local university. Uber has admitted that it had “suggest[ed]” certain parts of the executive order. On Tuesday, Ducey suspended the startup’s right to operate self-driving vehicles in the state, 10 days after a woman was struck and killed by one of its autonomous cars. Two weeks before the crash, Ducey signed another executive order “explicitly allowing fully driverless vehicles on Arizona’s roads,” and around half of Uber’s 200 self-driving vehicles were in the state at the time of the accident.