Time to hit the brakes
Some say not so fast on selfdriving trucks,
Walt Martin spent a decade as a long-haul truck driver, logging up to 200,000 miles a year. Now he’s back in the driver’s seat of a Volvo big rig cruising the 280 freeway just south of town.
Only he’s not driving. That task is being handled by self-driving truck technology built by Martin’s new employer, Otto. The 8month-old start-up founded by Google Car veterans was recently bought by ride-hailing giant Uber for $670 million.
“Fully developed, this tech will allow truck drivers to add more hours and more runs to their schedule,” Martin says. “Any type of efficiencies will help.”
But trucking professionals aren’t so sure. “Is this all intriguing and promising? Yes,” says Scott McNally, spokesman for the American Trucking Associations. “But are we skeptical? Yes.”
Much is being written about the push to develop self-driving automobiles, with tech companies and carmakers pumping human and financial capital into the quest while promising such transportation robots by 2021.
But by focusing on automating trucks, Otto has vaulted from unknown to key player seemingly overnight. One co-founder, Anthony Levandowski, was tapped by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to oversee the $67 billion company’s self-driving projects.
Kalanick clearly saw the potential for Uber to own a piece of the massive U.S. trucking industry, which in 2015 brought in $726 billion in revenue and accounted for 81% of all freight transport, according to the American Trucking Associations.
Otto’s mission is as simple as its tech is complex. Sometime in a few years, it hopes to produce an aftermarket self-driving kit consisting of radar, laser radar, cameras and computers that can be added to existing big-rig cabs.
There’s no price yet, but Cruise Automation, which GM just bought for $1 billion, was charging $10,000 to add its autonomous-driving sensors to cars.
Once on board, all this gadgetry would bring autonomy to a truck — the driver could sleep in the back while the truck drives itself on highways. All city driving would be handled by humans.
Ford, Uber, Google and others are promising that same autonomy (Level 4 under the Department of Transportation’s designations) for ride-hailing fleets plying dense urban centers.
Trucks, however, pose unique challenges. For reasons ranging from highway speeds to varying cargo requirements, trucking experts burst out laughing when asked about the notion of a driver sleeping while his truck barrels across a lonely state.
“A truck driver has to be 100% engaged in the act of driving, scanning the horizon for that SUV that’s changing a tire on the shoulder or some idiot doing something dumb, and anything less isn’t something I want to deal with, ever,” says Scott Grenerth, regulatory affairs director for the Owner- Operator Independent Drivers Association. The association represents about 350,000 owner-operators nationwide.
Nevertheless, in the coming weeks, Otto’s half-dozen $140,000 Volvo VNL 780 cabs, capable of pulling 53-foot trailers, will fan out across a few states for openroad testing.
During USA TODAY’s test drive, advantages over self-driving cars surfaced. For one, a selfdriving car’s tendency to drive like an elderly grandparent is annoying on city streets, but the same behavior in a truck on a highway doesn’t give motorists fits. While Martin’s rig stayed in its lane at a steady 55 mph, most cars simply chose to pass us. And second, such super-sophisticated cruise control could take away the monotony of the job.
Tougher to accept: a big rig, weighing 45,000-80,000 pounds, barreling along at 70 mph with a computer at the helm.
“I don’t see computers being able to account for every situation a trucker might experience.”
Scott Grenerth, regulatory affairs director for the Owner- Operator Independent Drivers Association