Uber’s self-driving truck program being ended

The race to create self-driving trucks just got a little less crowded.

That’s because Uber announced Monday that the ride-hailing giant is shuttering its self-driving truck program, a division that made history in 2016 by completing the world’s first autonomous truck delivery: 50,000 cans of Budweiser.

That division — a part of Uber’s Advance Technology Group — had other successes as well, including delivering freight on highways in Arizona using automated Volvo big rigs.

The robot-driven Volvo trucks were rolled out in November and included a human backup driver, the company said. The company did not have a formal partnership with Volvo but, instead, retrofitted Volvo trucks with their technology.

Uber said ending their self-driving truck program will allow the company to focus their energy on their self-driving car program, which the company is moving to relaunch on public roads.

Uber’s self-driving car program was suspended in March after a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz., was struck and killed by one of Uber’s driverless vehicles, leading to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation.

“We recently took the important step of returning to public roads in Pittsburgh, and as we look to continue that momentum, we believe having our entire team’s energy and expertise focused on this effort is the best path forward,” Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, said in a statement.

Uber Freight — a smartphone app that links truck drivers to freight — will continue, the company said, noting that it remains one of Uber’s most promising businesses, one that has tripled

An assembly plant in Louisville, Ky., is the company’s lone source of the crossover model for North America, with the capacity to build about 350,000 a year, Baum said.

Honda, by contrast, is about to have four North American plants building its CR-V model.

The company gets about 200,000 units annually from each of its factories in East Liberty, Ohio, and Alliston, Ontario. About 70,000 are built in Greensburg, Ind., and its plant in Marysville, Ohio, will chip in an additional 40,000 units a year starting next month.

All those plants add up to capacity for more than half a million CR-Vs a year in North American factories that also produce a smorgasbord of other models — and can adjust relatively quickly as consumer tastes evolve.

“We’re moving cars all over the place all the time to maximize our opportunities in the market,” said Ray Mikiciuk, assistant vice president of sales for Honda’s U.S. unit.

Japanese automakers also supplement North American production with imports, an approach that looks riskier as the Trump administration has begun a national-security investigation that could lead to prohibitive tariffs. Nissan sources Rogue models from Tennessee and Japan, while Toyota relies on Ontario and Japan for RAV4s.

U.S. automakers still are capable of strong forays in crossovers, Baum said. GM’s Chevrolet, for instance, reported a 17 percent sales jump for its Equinox crossover through June after completely redesigning the vehicle last year.

Brian Johnson, a Barclays Plc analyst in Chicago, points to the brand’s forthcoming Blazer model as the kind of performance-oriented crossover that Detroit will need to differentiate from other offerings and command premium prices.

But that sort of effort may be an exception over the next four years. Fiat Chrysler, for example, will account for about 3 percent of the industry’s new-car introductions, 11 percent of crossovers, and 31 percent of trucks during that span, Baum said.

That plan carries some risk. Oil prices have jumped about 65 percent since June 2017, topping $70 a barrel on Monday. And crude could get even costlier if geopolitical tensions escalate between the U.S. and Iran, as they did in 1979 — with devastating consequences.

“Detroit isn’t any less dependent on pickups now than it was in 2007,” Noble said. “Pickups are great when America is booming, but they’re horrible in a downturn.”

Brian Johnson, a Barclays Plc analyst, points to Chevy’s forthcoming Blazer model as the kind of performanceoriented crossover that Detroit will need to differentiate from others and command premium prices.