In the USA, the first freight transport with an autonomous truck, from coast to coast, was successful.
The distance from the West to east coast The USA is the classic route that some companies in the industry have already done. For example Aptiv. then still Delphi, carried out such a trip with an automated vehicle. The next trip was an automated truck on the road and transported butter.
This trip started and did not end entirely on the coast, but refers to two coastal states. So they started on 10 December in Tulare in the US state California and drove automated to Quakertown, in the US state Pennsylvania, The route covers about 2,800 miles, which is equivalent to about 4,500 kilometers, and lasted three days. The good you drove in the truck across the continent was butter – 18 kilograms of it.
This accomplished the startup Plus.ai based in Cupertino, California. The modified one truck has a level 4 automation. On board were also a security driver and a security engineer. The sensors of the vehicle include cameras, radar and lidar systems.
As the company informs, there was no difficulty and so the driver did not have to intervene. The company has been operating autonomous truck journeys for a year now. In just a few years, co-founder of Shawn Kerrigan, such trips will be routine.
Especially in the USA, but also in other countries, companies are working on the automation of trucks. These will probably have autonomous driving characteristics in front of the cars. Next Waymo even startups like TuSimple, embark or Starsky Robotics on this concept and have already made some commercial trips.
Years ago, Otto Uber, which has since been bought over by Uber, transported one Load of beer with an automated truck.
About David Fluhr
I’ve been writing about Autonomous & Connected Driving since 2011 and also talk about it on other sites like the Smart Mobility Hub. I studied social sciences at the HU Berlin and since 2012 I am a freelance journalist. Contact: mail@autonomes-fahren.de