Uber does not plan to continue testing autonomous cars in California as it faces fallout from one of its self-driving vehicles killing a pedestrian in Arizona.

While Uber announced shortly after the accident that it would suspend its autonomous vehicle testing nationwide, a letter from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) relayed the raid-hailing giant’s plans to discontinue testing in California for the foreseeable future.

“Uber has indicated that it will not renew its current permit to test autonomous vehicles in California”, says a letter from deputy DMV director Brian Soublet to Uber.

The company’s authority to drive autonomous cars on public roads in California, first granted last March, expires at the end of this month.

If it wants to secure a new permit after that, Mr Soublet wrote, the company “will need to address any follow-up analysis to investigations” from the Arizona crash.

“We decided to not reapply for a California DMV permit with the understanding that our self-driving vehicles would not operate on public roads in the immediate future”, an Uber spokesperson said in a statement.

Uber controversies Show all 4 1 /4 Uber controversies Uber controversies June 2017 Travis Kalanick resigned from his position as CEO of Uber in July of this year, after a tumultous period for the company. A sexist workplace culture was exposed by a damning internal report, leading to heightened pressure on the CEO and consequently to him taking a leave of absence in June. A week later he was forced to resign after losing the confidence of the board of investors AFP/Getty Uber controversies June 2017 Indian police escort Uber taxi driver and convicted rapist Shiv Kumar Yadav following his court appearance in New Delhi on 8 December, 2014. An Uber executive, Eric Alexander, was fired in June of this year after reportedly obtaining the records of the rapist's victim, with the intent to cast doubt on her account of the incident. She later sued the company for defamation and violating her privacy rights Chandan Khanna/AFP Uber controversies May 2017 The company were ordered to pay up to $45 million dollars back to New York based drivers, after taking too much in commission over a two and a half year period. “We made a mistake and we are committed to making it right by paying every driver every penny they are owed, plus interest, as quickly as possible,” said Rachel Holt, Uber’s regional general manager in the US and Canada, to the Wall Street Journal Getty Uber controversies December 2016 Uber's self-driving cars were ordered to be removed from the roads by a Californian car regulator, after being spotted skipping traffic lights. Uber insist that the incidents were "human error" rather than a design flaw. The New York Times later refuted this in an article claiming the autonomous technology had in fact failed Youtube/KTVU

The death of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle earlier this month as she crossed the road in Tempe, Arizona, has scrambled Uber’s plans to extend its transportation empire with fleets of self-driving cars.

Authorities in Arizona are still investigating the cause of the crash which occurred despite a human backup driver sitting at the vehicle’s wheel.

But the accident, which is believed to be the first time a pedestrian was killed by a self-driving car, has spurred a wave of questions about the readiness and reliability of self-driving car technology.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who has sought to position his state as a laboratory for autonomous cars, sent Uber a letter barring it from testing in Arizona and suggesting the company failed to prioritise public safety.

“I found the video to be disturbing and alarming”, Mr Ducey said in reference to footage of the collision, “and it raises many questions about the ability of Uber to continue testing in Arizona”.

Footage shows moments before fatal crash involving self-driving Uber vehicle

Uber’s decision to pull back in California comes a month after the state said it would begin offering permits to test autonomous vehicles without backup drivers. DMV director Jean Shiomoto touted the change as “a major step forward for autonomous technology in California”.

Since Uber won permission to test its cars on California roads, state records show one of its cars was involved in a minor collision. The car was rear-ended in August after a human operator disengaged the car’s systems to wait for pedestrians in San Francisco. No injuries were reported.

As technology and automotive companies seek to expand their self-driving car projects - Google spin-off Waymo just announced it was partnering with BMW Jaguar Land Rover to produce a fleet of up to 20,000 autonomous cars - accidents pose regular tests for the technology.