driverless trucks

Bot Auto sets ambitious 2025 schedule for driverless freight operations

Autonomous trucking company Bot Auto announced on Tuesday its plans to schedule continuous driverless commercial freight operations in 2025. The company’s schedule includes a minimum four-month pilot program of regular driverless runs between Houston and San Antonio, hauling cargo for customers.

In an interview with FreightWaves, Xiaodi Hou, founder and CEO of Bot Auto, said this initiative is a major step forward following Bot Auto’s previous successful hub-to-hub demonstration last October....

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/bot-auto-sets-ambitious-2025-schedule-for-driverless-freight-operations

Aurora, Continental and Nvidia announce partnership at CES

The race to deploy autonomous trucks at scale picked up speed as Aurora Innovation, Continental and Nvidia recently announced a long-term partnership to deploy driverless trucks at scale. The announcement came at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and followed a keynote address by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during which he rolled out the latest Blackwell AI chips.

The industry-first partnership came on the heels of Aurora and Continental reaching a key development milestone last year, when...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/aurora-continental-and-nvidia-announce-partnership-at-ces

Former FMCSA deputy hired by AI trucking company Plus

Autonomous trucking company Plus has hired former Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Deputy Administrator Earl Adams to lead the company’s public affairs and safety advocacy efforts and to advise the company on regulatory developments.

Earl Adams. Credit: Plus

“After nearly a decade on our autonomous journey, we are on the brink of commercializing autonomous trucks,” said Plus CEO and co-founder David Liu in a news release. “Earl’s unmatched experience in transportation policy and his...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/former-fmcsa-deputy-hired-by-ai-trucking-company-plus

Aurora opens driverless trucking route in Texas amid autonomous jitters

Aurora Innovation has christened the nation’s first commercial autonomous freight route between Dallas and Houston. But its timing could have been better.

“With this corridor’s launch, we’ve defined, refined, and validated the framework for the expansion of our network with the largest partner ecosystem in the autonomous trucking industry,” Sterling Anderson, an Aurora co-founder and chief product officer, said in a news release.

The choice of the Interstate 45 route was expected. Aurora has...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/aurora-opens-driverless-trucking-route-in-texas-amid-autonomous-jitters

California Senate votes to ban driverless trucks

The California Senate joined the state Assembly in overwhelmingly voting to ban heavy-duty driverless trucks on state highways. Whether to sign or veto the bill is now up to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The government through Newsom’s business office has been critical of Assembly Bill 316, but he has not said what he will do. The former San Francisco mayor is a big technology backer but also courts labor unions, which are the loudest voices behind the legislation.

Essentially, the bill, which passed Monday...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/california-senate-votes-to-ban-driverless-trucks

Landing and launching terminals for autonomous trucks getting closer

Driverless trucks likely will be in limited use on some U.S. interstates as soon as late 2024. How they will be maintained between trips is a growing focus for their software developers.

Aurora Innovation appears to be farthest along in preparing for inspections, fueling maintenance and automated landing and launch of autonomous Class 8 trucks. An unremarkable frontage road location in Palmer, Texas, south of Dallas is being transformed into a terminal capable of doing for autonomous trucks...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/landing-and-launching-terminals-for-autonomous-trucks-getting-closer

With $1B in the bank, reputationally dinged TuSimple looks ahead

TUCSON, Ariz. — TuSimple Holdings needs closure on a raft of investigations before it can reclaim technology leadership in the nascent autonomous trucking industry. But a balance sheet with nearly $1 billion is a big advantage.

“Our runway is three years, and that’s excluding any strategic decision on China,” TuSimple Chief Financial Officer Eric Tapia told FreightWaves in an interview at the company’s testing operations site. “China’s a great business. They have some interesting initiatives...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/with-1b-in-the-bank-reputationally-dinged-tu-simple-looks-ahead

The road to TMS and autonomous truck integration

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Autonomous trucks see and interpret their environment through massive amounts of computer power....

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-road-to-autonomous-trucking-tms-integration

Autonomous freight grows as source of 3rd-party capacity

Red Kodiak robotics truck in front of row of Werner Enterprises trucks

Kodiak Robotics and Werner Enterprises hauled autonomous freight four times round-trip between Dallas and Lake City, Florida, over 152 consecutive hours, the latest evidence that robots could replace human drivers on unpopular long-haul routes. 

With commercialization of driverless trucks still years away, Kodiak slipped its trained safety drivers in and out of the Peterbilt 579 cabs as the hours-of-service clock ticked down to the 11-hour limit of operation. The trucks didn’t need a break....

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/as-autonomous-trucking-routes-get-longer-who-does-the-supervising

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