Two of the trendiest topics in tech and innovation–Uber and self-driving cars–are set to combine in Pittsburgh. Uber is aiming to place 100 self-driving cars in the city for use by Uber customers, although it’s important to note that for right now, the driverless cars will contain drivers who are prepared to take over in case that anything goes wrong, as well as co-pilots who will monitor and observe the car. While driverless cars have been talked about for a few years at this point, the company’s giant leap into actually offering self-driving Ubers to its customers–even at a test level–is a major step.

Uber has been working with about 50 researchers and engineers from Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics department to develop the system, and while it’s being tested out, Uber self-driving car rides will be free. The plan is that even when Uber begins to charge for the trips, they’ll still be cheaper than traditional rideshare prices. Additionally, rather than make its own self-driving cars, Uber is just attaching driverless capabilities to regular cars–specifically “100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment.”

According to Bloomberg News, the set up will be:

For now, Uber’s test cars travel with safety drivers, as common sense and the law dictate. These professionally trained engineers sit with their fingertips on the wheel, ready to take control if the car encounters an unexpected obstacle. A co-pilot, in the front passenger seat, takes notes on a laptop, and everything that happens is recorded by cameras inside and outside the car so that any glitches can be ironed out. Each car is also equipped with a tablet computer in the back seat, designed to tell riders that they’re in an autonomous car and to explain what’s happening.

This is obviously still a work in progress in many ways. There are a lot of hurdles to get over before driverless cars actually become a realistic form of transportation–including legal concerns, as only a few states have authorized self-driving cars. But Uber’s taking a gutsy step, and next time you’re in Pittsburgh, you may end up in an Uber that’s a preview of the future of ridesharing.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Do you need to order a quick ride in Austin, Texas? You may now be out of luck, or forced to call a cab, because both Uber and Lyft are pausing their operations in the city for now.

This big move comes after voters in the city rejected a ballot measure that would have loosened regulations on the kinds of services ridesharing companies provide. The regulations were adopted late last year after the legislation was passed by Austin’s City Council, but the ballot measure was posed to Austin’s voters this Saturday. While both Uber and Lyft lobbied hard for its passage and spent a combined $8 million plus in lobbying, 56 percent of Austin’s voters cast their ballots against the measure.

The Austin regulations essentially required Uber and Lyft to be treated more like taxis. One of the biggest points of contention was that they required that the companies run the fingerprints of the drivers they hire–Uber and Lyft pushed back against that regulation because both companies conduct their own internal background checks. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Austin also prohibits drivers from stopping in traffic lanes for passenger drop-offs and pickups, includes requirements for identifying vehicles for hire and imposes data reporting on the ride-hailing companies.

Austin is a major tech hub with a recent large influx of young people, so the fact that Uber and Lyft would rather give up that market than comply with the regulations makes quite a strong statement. Uber has additionally threatened to leave Houston, where similar regulations are under ongoing debate. Both companies also followed through on their threat in San Antonio, after that city made fingerprinting mandatory. Neither operated within San Antonio limits until the city made fingerprinting voluntary instead of required.

Statements from both companies echo these sentiments. Lyft’s spokesperson Chelsea Wilson said:

Lyft and Austin are a perfect match and we want to stay in the city. Unfortunately, the rules passed by City Council don’t allow true ride-sharing to operate.

Uber’s Austin general manager, Chris Nakutis, talked a local news outlet and stated: “Disappointment does not begin to describe how we feel about shutting down operations in Austin.”

Uber and Lyft are now in a game of chicken with Austin–and there’s really know way to tell who will swerve first.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Uber (and its competitors) have certainly disrupted and innovated the transportation industry. But the reviews haven’t all been stellar–there have been multiple instances in which drivers have been accused of sexual assault. So, a new ride sharing company, Chariot for Women, is launching, with both women drivers and for women passengers. However, legal experts are concerned that the company may face legal challenges early on, on the grounds of discrimination.

The company was started by a former Uber driver named Michael Pelletz, who realized that drivers could sometimes be in vulnerable positions if a passenger gets aggressive. That, combined with security concerns from Uber and Lyft passengers, inspired the company. The website states:

The plan was perfect: As a women-owned company, Chariot for Women would use the safest practices to give the most secure and fun rideshare experience in the industry, driven by women, for women. Drivers are thoroughly background checked before they can ever accept one passenger request.

In addition to picking up women, the service will also pick up children under the age of 13, as well as transwomen. Chariot is also planning on using a feature that requires both the driver and passenger to confirm their identities with a code word when beginning a ride.

All of these ideas sound like ostensibly good things. However, the company may run into issues, and gender discrimination lawsuits could cost the fledgling startup quite a bit. Massachusetts employment law specialist Joseph Sulman stated:

To limit employees to one gender, you have to have what the law calls a bona fide occupational qualification. And that’s a really strict standard. The law’s really tough on that. For gender, it’s not enough to say, ‘we really just want to have a female here because our customers prefer that to feel safer.

However, Chariot’s founders seem ready to take on the legal challenge head on. Pelletz stated:

We want to show there’s inequality in safety in our industry. We hope to go to the US Supreme Court to say that if there’s safety involved, there’s nothing wrong with providing a service for women.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s an old saying–the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Two of Uber’s biggest rivals–Lyft and the Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Kuaidi have apparently taken that adage to heart, as they just announced they’re teaming up, seemingly in the hopes to take down the rideshare king–Uber.

The partnership between Lyft and Didi Kuaidi essentially means that users who have Lyft but not Didi Kuaidi downloaded can use their Lyft app to call a Didi Kuaidi car in a area where Lyft isn’t operating, and vice versa. By doing so, both services massively expanded their markets, and made it easier on their riders by combining the apps. This will mark Lyft’s first entry in the Chinese market, which is currently dominated by Didi Kuaidi. Didi Kuaidi claims to have control of roughly 80 percent of the private ridesharing market, and provides about three million rides each day. Moreover, this partnership isn’t the only interaction that Lyft and Didi Kuaidi have had–the Chinese company has invested heavily in Lyft. It contributed $100 million to Lyft’s most recent round of funding.

Why would Lyft and Didi Kuaidi want to get involved in each other’s markets? There’s one very simple explanation–they want to take Uber down. Uber already dominates Lyft in the U.S. While Didi Kuaidi is the prominent provider in China, the company is presumably nervous about Uber’s announcement that it plans to aggressively expand in China. During a round of fundraising this summer, Uber sent out a letter to investors that explained the opportunities available in the Chinese market. The letter stated:

Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu have all surpassed New York as our three largest cities on a trips basis. Impressively, Hangzhou and Chengdu have accomplished this feat in just 9 months, compared to New York which is 4 years old.

Hangzhou is now over 400x the size that New York was at its same age. 200,000 Hangzhou residents are becoming new UberChina riders every week!

While some critics think the numbers that Uber is claiming to have in China may be overblown, it’s clear that the company is making a big push. Given Didi Kuaidi’s move to partner with Lyft, it also doesn’t want to take the threat from Uber lying down.

Didi Kuaidi may be looking for other partners as well–rumors are floating that similar partnerships are in the works with ridesharing companies in India and Singapore. As Uber tries to break further into the international market, it may face an increasingly connected world of rivals.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Another day, another Uber controversy. It seems like the popular ride-sharing app will never see the end of its legal struggles. Some of the buzz is positive–Uber recently announced that it’s expanding and beefing up safety features. However, other recent headlines about the company cannot be considered anything but incredibly negative. For example, yet another rape accusation has come to light. Overall, as Uber continues to grow, so do safety concerns, and seemingly, safety features.

Read More: Uber Will Have a Rough Ride in 2015

A Philadelphia woman has come forward with allegations that she was raped by her Uber driver on February 6, and then essentially held captive in the car while he drove around for two hours following the assault. While she evidently brought the claims to the police, Uber claims that it didn’t learn about it until much later. A rep for the company told Philadelphia Magazine, who broke the story:

Our thoughts and prayers are with our rider. Upon learning of the incident, we immediately reached out to the Philadelphia Police Department to assist in their investigation and support their efforts in any way we can. As the investigation continues, the driver’s access to the Uber platform has been suspended.

New controversies for Uber aren’t just popping up here in the states. Two Uber drivers in Ottawa, Canada, recently pleaded guilty to operating unlicensed taxis. There have also been very high profile sexual assault allegations in France and India.

It’s in response to all of these developments, as well as others like them in the past and potential for more in the future, that Uber is launching new programs and initiatives focusing on safety. The additions to Uber’s safety measures will include things like incident response teams to investigate anything that may happen over the course of an Uber ride, and further review of things like quality assurance. The company will also expand its work with law enforcement, including in India where there will be a button programmed into the Uber app allowing riders to directly call law enforcement.

While some of these features seem promising, Uber still sometimes struggles to follow through, as evidenced by the United Nations Women’s partnership debacle from a few weeks back.

Read More: Uber’s New hiring Initiative: Trying to Win Back Women

Uber and UN Women announced a plan to work together to create jobs for female drivers and released a jointly signed letter on Uber’s website. However, after some backlash and safety concerns, UN Women pulled out of the agreement. Some of that backlash included a statement from the International Transport Workers Federation, which stated:

The creation of one million precarious, informal jobs will not contribute to women’s economic empowerment and represents exactly the type of structural inequality within the labor market that the women’s movement has been fighting for decades. Uber’s practices are defined by an aggressive informalization of an industry that was already deregulated three decades ago

It’s clear that Uber wants to make changes, but it’s certainly struggled to do so in the past. Perhaps it’s a side effect of being a young company that experienced a lot of growth very quickly, or just inherent to the nature of a business as informal as ridesharing. Either way, Uber needs to reform–and let’s hope that it sticks this time.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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