San Francisco — What if Uber acted more like Tesla? Executives at Uber have long been jealous of Elon Musk’s resilient public image. Compare Uber’s careful response to its self-driving car fatality with Tesla’s flurry of defensive statements. Both companies have received intense media and regulatory scrutiny, but Tesla seems to think it’s impervious — an approach the company’s supporters often celebrate. While Uber shut down its self-driving programme, Tesla’s semi-autonomous feature, Autopilot, is still deployed, and the car maker is publicly defying a government safety board. In Uber’s case, a car struck a woman who was walking across a street in March in Tempe, Arizona, killing her. The company quickly stopped operating self-driving cars on public roads and said it would co-operate with local and federal investigators. Those ongoing investigations have required Uber to keep quiet about the circumstances of the crash. A video of the collision, released by Tempe police, shows the c...
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