Before the industry began eyeing the possibility of driverless semis, there was a little car secretly driving around the country with no one at the wheel. This has now evolved into a new project, Waymo Via, which is looking to make autonomous trucking and local delivery a reality.
Two new special-report HDT Talks Trucking podcast episodes dig into the technology behind autonomous trucks.
Testing autonomous trucks is more complex than it seems. The men and women sitting in the left seat of the nation's burgeoning fleet of robotic trucks are often called safety drivers. Their responsibilities are far more comprehensive than just keeping the truck out of trouble.
Waymo is hiring Class A Drivers to monitor autonomous systems during driverless truck tests out of its new Dallas facility.
Self-driving truck entrepreneur Anthony Levandowski has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets related to autonomous vehicles, in what the judge called “the "biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen."
FCA and Waymo are developing an autonomous Ram ProMaster van, and will work together to Develop Class 1-3 light commercial vehicles for goods movement for commercial delivery customers.
While agnostic on deployment models and vague on timelines for deployment, Waymo is clear — its end goal is to be a technology provider, not a truck manufacturer or fleet owner.
Penske’s Bill Combs and Waymo’s Charlie Jatt believe the trucking industry can reap the benefits before achieving Level 5 autonomy through repositioning warehouses that are optimized for AVs, employing tele-operations, and adapting automated safety technologies available now.
Waymo has begun carrying out interstate mapping operations by a fleet of minivans in New Mexico and Texas – a move that is seen by many tech observers as a prelude to long-haul evaluation runs of tractor-trailers under autonomous control.
Much of the talk around self-driving trucks has focused on safety enhancements lately. But Waymo's CEO made it clear that trucking nonstop and around-the-clock remains the Holy Grail of tech developers.