Uber in the race for driverless car

As more and more car and technology firms are partnering up to develop self-driving vehicles, Uber joined forces with Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University to work on this project.

The company released a statement saying it had outfitted a Ford Fusion with radar, laser scanners and cameras.

Aside from pioneer Google, companies like Tesla are also developing the technology, while Chinese car and tech firms have also made significant progress.

Uber's big inconvenience as a car-hailing company is the fact it needs drivers, and so this line of research is about eliminating that final piece of the puzzle to boost profits.

The company has also recently joined a coalition with Google and several car makers to help steer the regulations needed to make self-drive cars a reality.

Together with Ford, Volvo and rival company Lyft, they aim to lobby lawmakers and regulators on some of the legal barriers that would need to be changed before driverless cars could hit the roads.