There’s a big—literally—reason the Uber robo-cars zipping around Pittsburgh aren't Smart Cars. The Volvo XC90 luxury SUVs making their groundbreaking foray into the future of transportation offer plenty of space for passengers, engineers, and, of course, tons of computer equipment and other gear.

But by choosing SUVs, Uber may have driven itself out of a loophole that allows taxi companies to avoid costly American with Disabilities Act requirements—a shift that could require the company to make its self-driving cars wheelchair accessible, adding thousands of dollars to the cost of every autonomous vehicle it puts on the road.

In the past, Uber has argued that it is an app, not a transportation service, which exempts it from ADA rules governing taxis. But going driverless hobbles that argument, says Bryan Casey, an independent researcher and student at Stanford Law School who makes his case in *Stanford Law Review. *"If [Uber] deploys autonomous vehicles that provide a taxi service without any independent contractor drivers," Casey says, "that defense of, ‘We’re just a platform,’ becomes even more tenuous."

As the hazy regulations stand, it's unclear whether self-driving cars subject Uber to accessibility laws. But the company has a unique chance to use the law to its advantage, delivering on the promise of autonomous cars while providing unprecedented transportation opportunities to the 31 million Americans with mobility-related disabilities.

What Is a Van?

In the years since Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, taxi companies have used the letter of the law to avoid making their vans, minivans, and SUVs wheelchair accessible. (This is not heartlessness: Adding a ramp or lift to a taxi can cost more than $10,000.) The ADA exempts cab companies from accessibility requirements unless they use “new van[s] with a seating capacity of less than eight passengers, including the driver." And so these folks buy used vans. Voila, they're legal.

Ah. But Uber most definitely is buying new Volvo SUVs for most of its autonomous services. (The company also has a small number of Ford Fusion Hybrid sedans.) Thus: What is a “van”?

This is not clear. Mary-Lee Smith, an attorney who oversees litigation for the Disability Rights Advocates, worked on a 2013 case challenging New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission's taxi fleet. Her team dug through documents, regulations, and court cases seeking legal precedents on what differentiates an automobile from a van. “For those type of questions, quite frankly, the law doesn’t offer a lot of guidance,” Smith says. (The New York case didn’t help—the plaintiff and the Taxi and Limousine Commission settled, so the case established no legal precedent on the definition of a van.)

That ambiguity may just be enough to press Uber to make its self-driving SUVs wheelchair accessible. There will be more litigation over Uber’s ADA compliance, says James Weisman, a disability attorney who leads the United Spinal Association. “Eventually, the law will catch up with them,” he says. “I’m not saying it’s going to be today.”

An Über Advantage

But making self-driving vehicles accessible to all 57 million Americans with disabilities doesn’t have to be a thorn in Travis Kalanick's side. “Embracing ADA liability is an opportunity to cement Uber’s position as a nationwide transportation titan,” says Casey. In other words: If Uber builds accessibility into its self-driving vehicles now, it’s going to be hard for anyone to catch up. It will have a vast segment of the population to itself.

It’s not as if Uber is opposed to accessibility. The company declined to comment on the legal issues in question, but pointed to its various disability-friendly pilots across the country, including integrations with local van-equipped taxi companies, and training for anyone interested in transporting people who need assistance through the UberACCESS program. It also sees big money in working with the paratransit system, which serves those whose disabilities limit their access to mass transit. Outfitting every autonomous vehicle with ramps or lifts would make Uber an even more attractive government partner.

So building in wheelchair accessibility now—not later—could be a windfall. And it's cheaper to do it now, while its fleet is small. Waiting could cost the company tens of millions of dollars in retrofits.

Your move, robots.