“Fully driverless trucks are now on the road in Texas, thanks to efforts by Aurora Innovation, a self-driving startup. Companies have been testing self-driving trucks in Texas for years, but Aurora’s are the first to make long-distance commercial trips on a public highway without a human in the cab,” reports The Doomslayer.
CNN reports:
On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technology dubbed “Aurora Driver.”….
The trucks are equipped with computers and sensors that can see the length of over four football fields. In four years of practice hauls the trucks’ technology has delivered over 10,000 customer loads. As of Thursday, the company’s self-driving tech has completed over 1,200 miles without a human in the truck.
Aurora is starting with a single self-driving truck and plans to add more by the end of 2025.
Self-driving technology continued to garner attention after over a decade of hype, especially from auto companies like Tesla, GM and others that have poured billions into the tech. Companies in the market of autonomous trucking or driving, tend to use states like Texas and California as their testing grounds for the technology.
California-based Gatik does short-haul deliveries for Fortune 500 retailers like Walmart. Another California tech firm, Kodiak Robotics, delivers freight daily for customers across the South but with safety drivers. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, had an autonomous trucking arm but dismantled it in 2023 to focus on its self-driving ride-hailing services.
Waymo self-driving taxis now transport thousands of passengers every day in American cities. Waymo published safety research on its vehicles suggesting that self-driving cars are safer than human-driven cars: “Across 25.3 million miles, the Waymo Driver was involved in just two bodily injury claims.” This injury rate is 92 percent lower than that of the overall driving population.
Robots are also saving lives by doing difficult and dangerous tasks. German robots are hunting the North Sea for tens of thousands of unexploded World War II bombs.
Robots with artificial intelligence have been spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour.
