Self-driving commercial trucks could regularly operate alongside the motoring public on U.S. highways sooner than many may think, particularly as the industry moves beyond prototypes to real-world, on-road testing. However, the shift likely will be gradual and largely dependent on commercial truck OEMs, regulations, and gaining public acceptance.<\/p>\n
Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology providers Kodiak Robotics and Waymo have been hauling freight with self-driving Class 8 trucks in the Southwest corridor of the U.S. over the last few years. And they are learning how their autonomous trucks are interacting with some of the busiest traffic environments in the country, as well as what it will take to bring full-scale Level 4 autonomy to commercial trucking. With Level 4 autonomy, drivers can shift safety-critical functions to the vehicle, which operates only if all required conditions are met. Whereas, no driver is required for Level 5 autonomy, which is known as “anytime, anywhere” technology that can drive the vehicle under all conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found a tremendous overlap in self-driving technology for passenger cars and how you need to solve the technology problem different for trucking,\u201d explained Charlie Jatt, head of commercialization for trucking at Waymo, during a recent MOVE America<\/a>\u00a0virtual panel focused on truck technology and innovation. \u201cFor trucks, you have to see farther down the highway to anticipate things sooner and faster.”<\/p>\n Waymo has been operating Peterbilt 579s outfitted with its AV technology<\/a> in Texas, given the density of freight in the area. The company, owned by Alphabet, also has been testing Class 8 self-driving trucks in Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Testing its autonomous technology on commercial trucks began in 2017 and was conducted with real freight for real customers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we are testing an autonomous truck carrying freight, in a lot of ways, it doesn\u2019t look different than any other truck driving that load; it just happens to be driving autonomously,\u201d Jatt said. \u201cOn the surface, you can look at that and say, \u2018There isn\u2019t much difference here.\u2019 But when you really peel back the onion and ask what\u2019s going to change when we actually get to that commercially scalable, fully driverless solution that we are focused on, we found that fleets have tons of really good questions about the downstream effects.\u201d<\/p>\n Fleets often want to know how their maintenance program will change with autonomous trucks, Jatt noted. Fleets also wonder whether they will have to develop relationships with new partners and whether they will have to train their workforce differently.<\/p>\n Jatt also pointed out that fleets want to know what to expect when something goes wrong. For instance, what happens when a truck gets the inevitable flat tire and has to pull off to the side of the road?<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of anticipatory challenges that we can identify together with fleets,\u201d Jatt said. \u201cWhat\u2019s encouraging is the feedback we are getting: I would call it \u2018constructive scrutiny.\u2019 This is how can we figure out all the things we are going to need to do in order to make this technology successful.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Waymo, Kodiak Robotics<\/a>\u00a0started hauling between Dallas and Houston in 2019 using Kenworth trucks loaded with Kodiak\u2019s self-driving technology. Last December, the tech-enabled trucks navigated 205 miles of Texas highway for the first time.<\/p>\n During MOVE America Virtual, Don Burnette, co-founder and CEO of Kodiak Robotics, explained it\u2019s important to recognize that Kodiak is working to build a true driver-out technology\u2014meaning the company plans to deploy its trucks without anyone in the cab.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you think about the role of the traditional driver, I think it\u2019s really going to shift in the future,\u201d Burnette said. \u201cWe have been optimizing our technology specifically for highways. We envision a model where self-driving trucks focus on those long, lonely highway miles while leaving the first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery to the traditional human driver. The driver model will shift much more to the regional driving as opposed to some of those long-haul driving roles.\u201d<\/p>\n To date, Kodiak has built a concept fleet and has been operating today as a carrier, hauling freight on behalf of commercial shippers. Kodiak is also working with digital brokers.<\/p>\n And until real driverless operations begin, Kodiak is focused on autonomous trucking as a service model, where Kodiak will build the autonomous driving system and provide that as a service to existing carriers, Burnette added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe freight industry has many different players,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the shipping side, what we\u2019ve heard from shippers is they care about moving goods reliably, on time, and at cost. If you can do that, then they would love to work with you as a carrier. They see the autonomous freight technology as a way to better streamline that reliability because these trucks will be able to operate more or less 24\/7, they\u2019re never drowsy, they are always paying attention, and I think that\u2019s better overall for the ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n Driver recruiting and retention issues have always topped industrywide concerns, but capacity constraints have become even more problematic during the pandemic. In addition, older truck drivers are beginning to retire and there aren\u2019t enough younger entrants to fulfill current supply chain demands.<\/p>\n Waymo\u2019s Jatt pointed out that it\u2019s becoming more difficult for trucking companies to recruit drivers for long-haul routes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s really encouraging is it\u2019s those use cases where I think autonomous trucks will be valuable,\u201d Jatt said. \u201cSo, that shift to driving jobs to more regional or local jobs I think is a natural evolution where autonomous trucks can help narrow the driver shortage, first and foremost, and create a shift where the jobs in need of human drivers are more attractive. Hopefully, they will be easier to recruit and retain overall, creating an industry that is a little more resilient and reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges associated with full-scale adoption of Level 4 autonomous trucks starts with the truck manufacturer, Jatt pointed out.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, if Waymo, Kodiak, or anyone else\u2019s software was fully ready for autonomous trucks, you wouldn\u2019t have a driverless truck on the road because you can\u2019t actually buy the truck itself that is equipped with all the safety and redundancy technology that is needed for a vehicle to operate safely and successfully in fully autonomous mode,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Jatt also emphasized that the design cycles in creating new technology in these vehicles take a long time. To help address some of these challenges, last year Waymo partnered with Daimler Trucks North America<\/a> to develop a Freightliner Cascadia model and outfit it with the base technology needed to make that truck ready to operate in fully autonomous mode. That, according to Jatt, will take some time for that base truck platform and for Waymo to ready for full scalable commercial deployment.<\/p>\n Jatt also pointed out that AV technology is fundamentally agnostic when it comes to the powertrain of the vehicle, so Kodiak and Waymo are both testing with traditional diesel trucks on the road today. As the industry moves toward electric trucks, both tech providers intend to be part of the transition; however, they aren\u2019t planning on waiting around for widescale charging infrastructure or to hold off on the other benefits that can be realized from autonomous technology on any type of powertrain.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all developing our AV systems to be platform agnostic,\u201d Burnette emphasized. \u201cWhile we don\u2019t have any project working on electric drivetrains today, I think it will be easier to work on an electric drivetrain. It will be more responsive, there is more latency, and working with diesel platforms is actually more complicated.<\/p>\n \u201cWaymo, Kodiak and the rest of the AV industry are not vehicle platform developers,\u201d he added. \u201cWe certainly believe in the electrification of the future. For now, the benefits of AV technology are important enough that we can\u2019t wait around for electrification. We have to work with what we have today. There are a lot of other drivetrains possible for the future, and I think that AV technology will be available for whichever.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Jatt and Burnette also addressed the public\u00a0misconception between Level 4 and Level 5 autonomy<\/a>. Waymo and Kodiak both focus on Level 4 autonomous driving rather than Level 5, which is anytime, anywhere, any place without a driver.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of the rollout, we understand the challenges we have, and we think it will be available in the coming years,\u201d Jatt said. \u201cWe don\u2019t put an exact date on it, but this is not a decade-away technology. This is very much going to come in the coming years, but it\u2019s also not going to happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n Kodiak\u2019s Burnette believes that the industry will see the first driverless trucks on the road sooner than people think.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be this year and maybe not next year, but certainly on some lanes, at some capacity, and at some level of scale, I think by 2025,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a long time before we see full-scale adoption across the country more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnette also emphasized that the trucking industry isn\u2019t going to change overnight. The shift to Level 4 autonomous trucking will likely be a gradual, symbiotic shift over the course of the next decades, he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n By Cristina Commendatore<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Source: https:\/\/www.fleetowner.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Kodiak and Waymo have been putting Class 8 autonomous trucks to work in the Southwest corridor, gaining insights as to how self-driving trucks interact with some of the busiest traffic environments in the U.S. Self-driving commercial trucks could regularly operate alongside the motoring public on U.S. highways sooner than many may think, particularly as the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10523"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10533,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions\/10533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Shifting the traditional driver\u2019s role<\/h3>\n
![\"Kodiak](\"https:\/\/base.imgix.net\/files\/base\/ebm\/fleetowner\/image\/2021\/03\/Kodiak_Robotics_Truck_Texas_Flags.6061d197c2efd.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440\")
Photo: Kodiak Robotics<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAV challenges<\/h3>\n
![\"Waymo](\"https:\/\/base.imgix.net\/files\/base\/ebm\/fleetowner\/image\/2021\/03\/waymo_truck_brick_building.5f466a38d84e8.6061d2473ccba.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440\")
Waymo is testing Peterbilt 579 trucks on runs from Dallas to El Paso and Houston.<\/span>Photo: Waymo<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nCUT COTS OF THE FLEET WITH OUR AUDIT PROGRAM<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/04\/nueva-ley-auditoria.jpg\")
<\/a>The audit is a key tool to know the overall status and provide the analysis, the assessment, the advice, the suggestions and the actions to take in order to cut costs and increase the efficiency and efficacy of the fleet. We propose the following fleet management audit.<\/p>\nFLEET MANAGEMENT AUDIT<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"