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Autonomous Car Progress
- Thread starter stopcrazypp
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Here's a link (paywall):
www.bloomberg.com
Driverless Truck Companies Plan to Ditch Human Copilots in 2024
Driverless trucks with no humans on board will soon cruise Texas highways if three startup firms have their way, despite objections from critics who say financial pressures, not safety, is behind the timetable.
www.bloomberg.com
scottf200
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
Does the driver run alongside and hop back in at the end of that stretch?
I think that most of these autonomous truck companies are pursuing a model that runs Depot to Depot, ie the truck handles highway travel and makes it to and from a truck corral that is easily accessible from the highway routes. At that point, human drivers can take over for warehouse or retail loading and unloading, service, new trailer dispatching and all that.
There's no hard and fast rule about this, obviously the vehicles can do more over time as the technology progresses and the business model benefits from it.
Speculation on my part: the sensor suite it's probably mostly associated with the cab unit; I assume there must be some cameras or other sensors that get attached to trailers when they're hooked up to the cab, but I assume that portion is kept to a minimum and the goal is to be as universal as possible. Perhaps the important customers own and can standardize all the trailers, but I would think it's advantageous to be able to adapt as much as possible.
Others may chime in who really know or want to search more; I just jumped in to break the cycle of derision because I don't think it's a crazy idea to automate the long haul stretches.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
But it does illustrate the problem with self driving.... It really has to do everything or it won't work.
There is a middle ground with "platooning", whereby a hybrid human/machine drives a lead truck,
while a fully-automated 18-wheeler drives behind.
Sounds ripe for an attack by Somali styled pirates. Surround a driverless truck, force it to stop and Bob’s Your Uncle. Maybe need to jam its connection to the internet, but all doable by a motivated pirate.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Since you reposted the same article, allow me to repost my response because this article needs to be rebutted.
IMO, this "analysis" is total trash.
The very first line is wrong. There are no full L5 vehicles being tested anywhere. The vehicles being tested in SF and Austin that he is referring to (Waymo and Cruise) are L4. So he is confused about the level of autonomy of the vehicles being tested. He also only mentions testing in SF and Austin. He leaves out that Waymo has a 24/7 robotaxi service in both SF and Phoenix (more than just testing) and is testing in LA. If he does not even know the level of autonomy of the vehicles being tested and does not know where they are operating or what service they are providing, it does not bode well for his "analysis".
He mentions that lidar stock as crashed. That is utterly irrelevant to his argument as lidar stock is about economics, not whether the public will embrace driverless which is based on safety and convenience issues. Certainly, the general public does not care one iota about the price of lidar stock. The general public is not going to protest against driverless because of the price of lidar stock.
He mentions that Waymo has added tech to allow first responders to move the vehicles. That is true. But he leaves out all the other improvements that Waymo implemented to make their vehicles safer around first responders, the fact that Waymo works closely with first responders and the fact that Waymo had far fewer incidents with first responders than Cruise. So he is conveniently leaving a lot out. That is pretty sloppy "analysis".
But to his main point that there will be backlash, yes, there was a big backlash in SF last year. There is no doubt about that. But the counter argument I would give is that the backlash was contained mostly to SF and it was mostly against Cruise. Waymo saw less backlash in SF last year. And I have not seen much if any backlash now in SF with just Waymo operating. Interesting that as soon as Cruise shutdown, the backlash basically stopped completely. That tells me the backlash was directly at Cruise rather than driverless in general. And Waymo has more than doubled their geofence in Phoenix and there is very little if any backlash. Waymo is also testing in Austin and LA and I have not seen any real backlash. So the idea that there will be a big backlash against driverless is not really supported by the facts. But certainly, if we see major incidents with driverless this year, then yes, there could be some big backlash. But if there are no major incidents, I don't expect there to be much backlash.
Overall, it feels like very lazy "analysis". He confuses the levels of autonomy, ignores where Waymo is operating driverless, throws in some irrelevant data about lidar stocks, takes the backlash that did occur in SF against Cruise and concludes that there will be a big backlash against all driverless this year.
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diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
In their ad for the upcoming CES talk, Mobileye seems to tease that they are going to announce something related to generative AI:
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
I don't think so, no. Humans do that. Remember, these autonomous trucks just drive from one depot to the next. At the depots, there are humans who attach and detach trailers, load cargo, refuel the trucks, handle maintenance etc...
Agreed. While I think there is a shortage of workers in all aspects, like warehouse loading and unloading, diesel mechanics and so on, the shortage of truck drivers is acute. So it makes perfect sense to have the depot-to-depot truck automation model come first, and all of the local driving and ancillary trucking support can be done in the traditional ways unless and until more robot technology comes along - just like every other industry.
It doesn't really prove any negative points to make a list of all the things that humans would still have to do along the route. In fact that doesn't really have much to do with anything regarding the viability of automated highway trucking. They are addressing the most pressing problem first, the scarcity of Intercity long-haul drivers.
(It's not the same situation as for consumer AVs. While there are constantly posts on TMC from people who only care about highway autonomy, or only about some other subset of capabilities, it makes a real difference if the car can carry non-licensed passengers with high probability of L4 success.)
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Can these Trucks adapt to changing Weather and Road conditions and adjust speed accordingly? If the Trucks need assistance do they use remote drivers or do they send people out to rescue the Trucks? If they use remote help does that person need a CDL? Is Kodiak testing in Snow?
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Here is Mobileye's CTO talk on their new driving experience platform that will let OEMs customize the driving experience. I thought it was pretty interesting. It is about 30 minutes long. I highly recommend:
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