Uber heads down under to quietly roll out services in Sydney

The Uber blog quietly announced yesterday that the car service startup is in real-world beta testing in Sydney. The post makes it pretty clear that there are only a few cars on the road now and services will be unreliable until a formal launch.

Uber traditionally tests a few cars, in this case to Australia’s own Holden Caprice sedans, in a city before launching. However, the startup announced it was in its “secret testing phase” in Vancouver last May and has yet to formally launch so Australian riders shouldn’t expect the full Uber treatment for some time.

It’s too early to tell what type of industry regulations the startup with run into, but Gizmodo Australia suggests there might be issues up ahead, “The Sydney Taxi industry is a cutthroat environment, and the last thing Uber wants to do is fall foul of the industry or the regulators.”