Uber is getting out of the self-driving car business, turning over its operation to a San Francisco startup with Pittsburgh ties.

Aurora, which has offices in San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Dallas, announced the acquisition of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Monday.

Uber will invest $400 million in Aurora and get a 26% stake in the company. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join Aurora’s board.

The deal includes the technology and employees of the Advanced Technology Group, which for several years has used Pittsburgh as a testing ground.

Though Aurora is based in Silicon Valley, its chief technology officer, Drew Bagnell, is a Carnegie Mellon professor who lives and works in Pittsburgh, the New York Times reported.

The company has about 600 employees, according to the Times.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto expressed optimism about the deal.

“The self-driving vehicle industry was born in Pittsburgh and through this agreement will continue to grow here,” Peduto said in a statement. “The industry employees thousands of Pittsburghers directly, and with this purchase Aurora is assuring it will continue to thrive here and Pittsburgh will remain a global technology hub.”

Uber’s self-driving SUVs have become a familiar sight around Pittsburgh, particularly in the Strip District. The company set up shop in the city in 2015.

The Advanced Technology Group had hundreds of employees in the city, many of them engineers, roboticists and researchers from Carnegie Mellon University.

Last year the company announced the construction of a new test track in Findlay, relocating an existing track in Hazelwood.

Despite early optimism, the Advanced Technology Group has faced numerous difficulties, the New York Times reported.

In 2017 Google spinoff Waymo sued Uber, accusing former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski of stealing trade secrets and bringing them to Uber.

Levandowski was fired and earlier this year sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Uber settled with Google, giving the search giant a $72 million stake in the company.

In 2017 a woman was killed by a self-driving Uber car in Tempe, Ariz., which caused the company to shut down vehicle tests on public streets for about a year.

The coronavirus pandemic caused Uber’s revenue to plummet. The company has laid off more than 6,000 employees this year.

These financial troubles prompted investors to call for the company to sell off its least-profitable endeavors, particularly the self-driving unit, the New York Times reported.

Aurora will put self-driving passenger vehicles on the back burner for the time being, according to the Times. Its priority is larger vehicles, particularly long-haul trucks.

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