Autonomous Trucking Space Is Heating Up

In February (2017), the industry witnessed the debut of California-based Embark (with 21-year-old founders) from stealth mode with its autopilot system for largely unpopulated highway driving, as well as Waymo’s litigation against Otto for patent infringement. However, in the background, companies including Daimler AG, Peterbuilt, and Volvo are busy developing their respective autonomous solutions. Despite all this fanfare and a reported shortage of nearly 100,000 truckers, 1.7 million U.S. truckers are vocally concerned about the longevity of their careers.

The U.S. moves at least 70% of freight tonnage via trucks, which is anticipated to rise by 27% over the next 10 years. In addition, the employee base is aging and exceeds the U.S. average, with a median age of 49 years old.

Companies, such as Embark, employ a variety of technologies including radar, cameras, depth sensors (LiDAR), and machine learning (ML), by processing massive data from sensors utilizing deep neural nets (DNNs) to comprehend its environment and prevent collisions. The solution is trained to address darkness, glare, and fog. Like Otto, Embark’s focus is on long-haul operations and highway driving versus last mile, and includes a machine to human hand-off for populated city driving. Ultimately, this is expected to have an impact on the current U.S. Hours of Service (HOS), when a driver could potentially sleep or act as a mobile worker during long trips. Embark is funded by Maven Ventures and likely received millions of dollars to develop its technology. Maven Ventures invested in Cruise Automation, which GM purchased last year for a reported US$1 billion.  

Last October (2016), Otto piloted a highway trip in Colorado to test and promote its self-driving solution to control steering, braking, and acceleration with a driver in the back. Otto is in the process of reducing the cost of a retrofit to approximately US$30,000 or approximately two years for ROI, which is meaningful with an estimated eight-year development cycle for a new vehicle. LiDAR systems are also expected to drop in the foreseeable future, from the previous US$100,000 to sub US$10,000 for these vehicles.

The autonomous trucking value proposition has the potential to reduce accidents and fatalities, with truck driving as one of the nation’s deadliest occupations. Overall, large truck fatalities were up 22% from 2009 to 2015. Fuel efficiency can also be reduced (about 1/3 of operational costs) from improved driving, as well as payload and driver/HOS optimization benefits. Additionally, a commercial long-haul truck’s interior could conceivably be developed in the future without a sleeping berth, as more than 1/3 of commercial truck cost can be attributed to driver well-being.

The promise of autonomous freight grew substantially over the last year. Advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) capabilities for drivers still commanding their trucks are expanding in the U.S. and beyond. End-to-end, fully-driverless, and autonomous trucking is nearly a decade away, with regulation and cultural expectations falling behind the technology’s capabilities.

Several avoidance algorithms developed for autonomous cars are not applicable to commercial vehicles. However, the economic benefits with autonomous commercial vehicles are much higher than those for cars. Still, Otto is not currently planning driverless solutions. Volvo is also not planning to utilize its autonomous commercial vehicles on public streets but rather leverage them for mines, ports, and private sites.

Interestingly, Ohio—known as trucking central with over 70,000 drivers—designated 35 miles of highway outside Columbus (first DOT smart city site) to test autonomous commercial vehicles. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the Ohio Trucking Association also appear to support autonomous trucks.

Many of the autonomous vehicle technology fundamentals have been tested at least in early stages. Possible evolution includes the use of augmented reality (AR), utilizing heads-up displays in vehicles to begin the transition from ADAS to autonomy over an extended period of time.