"Uber just quietly bought 600 acres of land to build a new test track for self-driving cars in Pittsburgh" (UBER)

Speaking of Uber (post immediately below, en passant), despite his cashing out his stake—or maybe because of his liquidations, we should pay attention to the thinking of former CEO Kalanick on the economics of the Ubester:

"We're at the very beginning stages of becoming a robotics company," Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said at the Vanity Fair Summit in San Francisco in October. "As we move toward the future, autonomy is a pretty critical thing for us. It's existential."

-via c|net, Dec. 2016

Existential. As in the very existence of the company.
See also:

"When there's no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle. So the magic there is, you basically bring the cost below the cost of ownership for everybody, and then car ownership goes away."

-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, May 28, 2014

Which probably explains 2016's "Uber Is Stealing Scientists, But Only So It Can Lay Off Drivers":
From DealBreaker:
Ain’t no partnership like an Uber partnership, cuz… an Uber partnership will leave your previously elite research institution bereft of researchers....

And 2015's:
Big Money: Uber Guts Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab To Hire Autonomous Car Developers
Raising money at a $600 illion zillion fafillion valuation allows you to buy pretty much anything.
The way this is going to pan out is: you won't be able to own the vehicle but its use will be mandated. The car is autonomous but the people aren't....

All of which gets us to Pennsylvania and Uber's drama-fraught bromance with the former steel-town:
"Pittsburgh has finally realized it’s in a toxic relationship with Uber" (and some handy break-up translations)

And today's headline story, from Business Insider, December 26:

• Uber has purchased nearly 600 acres of land near Pittsburgh to test its self-driving-car technology, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times.
• The new track will include an observation deck and employ about 200 people, the report said.
• It marks the latest expansion of Uber's self-driving-car ambitions as it competes with rivals like Tesla, Alphabet's Waymo, Ford, and other major players.

An Uber affiliate has purchased nearly 600 acres of land near Pittsburgh to test self-driving-car technology.
The purchase marks the company's latest expansion of its autonomous-driving efforts, which it resumed testing on public roads in Pittsburgh in December last year after suspending the program for nine months following a fatal accident in Arizona.

"I can confirm that we've closed on the purchase of this land for the purpose of building a test track," the Uber spokesperson Sarah Abboud told Business Insider in an email.
Imperial Land Corp. sold the 596-acre property to an Uber affiliate called 3 Rivers Holdings LLC for $9.5 million.

"As for next steps and timing for when the track will be up and running we do not have details yet but will have more to share in the coming months," Abboud told the Pittsburgh Business Times....MORE

Probably related:
You Understand Why Mr. Son and SoftBank Are Circling Uber, Right?