Vaughan Schmidt explained that much earlier than that, the company will deploy small pilots with customers, \u201ccomplete a few missions in selected [operations] in selected areas in the Southwest region of the U.S. and then grow it from there over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Fleming, CEO of Torc Robotics, emphasized that \u201cwe\u2019re not setting a hard date. Our approach is we will deploy the product when it\u2019s safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaughan Schmidt added, \u201cIt\u2019s a marathon, it\u2019s not a sprint. Safety will dictate our timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is in contrast to a recent announcement from Navistar and autonomous technology company TuSimple they were targeting production of a Level 4 autonomous truck by 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n One issue, Fleming said, is that the cameras, radar, and lidar needed just aren\u2019t where they need to be yet. Daimler, he said, is using its relationship with suppliers to drive improvements to meet specifications that address not only safely, but also efficiency and cost-effectiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn’t, in my opinion, [automated driving] hardware commercially available that meets all three today,\u201d he said. \u201cBut through the Daimler family, we’re able to leverage those tier one relationships to accelerate the development of these sensors with the right specifications and leverage the volume on the Daimler side to drive down the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n The call also took some swipes at competitors, especially startups.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are focused on a product \u2013 not a demo,\u201d Fleming said. \u201cWe are not following a startup playbook. We are two well-established companies that understand the complexities of bringing a safe product to market.\u201d<\/p>\n And a key part of bringing a product to market, he said, is putting customers first. The need to think about how to integrate autonomous trucks into fleet operations is why Daimler said it already is engaging customers in the effort.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Daimler being the market share leader, they have established very strong relationships with all of the fleets,\u201d Fleming said. \u201cAnd when I look at a competitive advantage of Torc and Daimler, it’s leveraging those relationships, making sure we get those requirements right with the customers.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Fleming said, \u201cI do not believe you can do that outside of an OEM.\u201d Some in the industry, he said, are looking at separating the virtual software driver from the truck. \u201cIn my opinion, retrofitting is not commercially viable. Daimler is reinventing the truck to be a self- driving truck. You have to look at this as a complete product stack. By optimizing that entire IP product stack, you can bring a cost-effective safe product [to market] that creates value. We\u2019re not really promoting customers, because we\u2019re focused on the product as opposed to headlines.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked by HDT how the industry can make a determination about which autonomous technology companies to trust, Fleming said, \u201cIf you have a new company\u2026 it’s very difficult to trust them, because you don’t have many data points. There’s not consistency. One of the things that I think we appreciated about Daimler and Daimler appreciated about us is neither one of us was a startup. We had a long track record. And I think that any new company in any new area that doesn’t have a track record, I think it’s going to be challenging to really trust them. And I believe one of the reasons that Daimler and Torc joined forces is we both have a long track record of finding ways to bring product to market.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re also taking the approach here of not making promises that self-driving trucks will be commercially available in one year. Because as someone who has been in the space for 15 years, I’ll tell you very frankly, that that will not happen, or will not happen in a safe fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n Although it hasn’t trumpeted the fact, customers are very much a part of Daimler and Torc autonomous product development. Photo: Daimler Trucks<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Daimler Trucks and Torc started their collaboration in spring 2019, with initial public road testing on highways starting last September in southwest Virginia, where Torc is headquartered. Closed-track road testing is also conducted in Madras, Oregon, at Daimler Trucks North America\u2019s High Desert Proving Grounds. In February, the two announced plans to expand testing of automated truck technology <\/a>to additional locations, adding new public routes in the U.S., but that was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic downtime, the teams focused on running simulations, and resumed public road testing in Virginia in June.<\/p>\n Now, Daimler’s Autonomous Technology Group is building a new testing center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which will support testing for more use cases on public roads starting this fall.<\/p>\n All automated test drives require a safety conductor overseeing the systems and a safety driver certified by Daimler Trucks and Torc. All safety drivers, Daimler said, hold commercial driver\u2019s licenses and are trained in vehicle dynamics and automated systems.<\/p>\n Daimler and Torc are taking a three-legged approach to integrating the truck, the virtual driver, and the operating environment. Photo: Screen shot from Zoom call with trucking media.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n In order to meet their goal of putting autonomous trucks into real-world use, Daimler and Torc said they are taking an integrated approach based on three pillars:<\/p>\n Daimler is working on the first one, \u201creinventing the truck\u201d to refine the vehicle safety systems that are critical to developing safe automated driving. The goal is to refine a truck chassis that is perfectly suited for highly automated driving and includes the redundancy of systems needed to achieve safe, reliable driving.<\/p>\n Torc is working on the virtual driver, the software that actually makes the driving decisions. Torc has 15 years of experience in commercializing self-driving technology in heavy-duty, safety-critical applications, according to the company, and its \u201cAsimov\u201d autonomous driving system has been tested on public roads, including a cross-country journey.<\/p>\n Daimler and Torc stressed this integrated approach on the media call.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have software and we have hardware that have to come together in a robust, well-balanced product,\u201d said Fleming.<\/p>\n Some of the operational and network issues that need to be addressed include things such as the protocol to make sure it\u2019s safe to send a truck on a mission, Vaughan Schmidt explained. \u201cHas someone inspected the truck and the tires and the trailer? Is the route clear? Once the truck is on the way, is everything OK, does anything happen? I think this technology platform should be provided by us and developed\u2026 the execution but also how to embed it into our customers\u2019 systems. We would foresee that maybe we even have different options depending on customer preference.\u201d<\/p>\n As Fleming said, \u201cthere will be things we need to do to accommodate the virtual driver that Daimler\u2019s customers do not do today.\u201d As an example, he said, there would need to be a human on call to intercede in situations where the virtual driver\u2019s programming doesn\u2019t cover what to do. He offered as an example a scenario where a policeman is standing in the middle of the highway directing traffic around an accident. \u201cThere\u2019s a level of uncertainty with the truck as they encounter a situation they don\u2019t know how to handle.\u201d The truck at that point would come to a safe stop and send a video and other information to the tele-operator, who would interpret what the police officer is asking the truck to do and let the truck\u2019s virtual driver know what steps to take next.<\/p>\n Asked about the lack of federal regulations or guidelines on autonomous truck development, Daimler and Torc said there\u2019s a danger in developing regulations too soon. Fleming explained, \u201cRight now, Torc and Daimler are working with the regulators to bring them up to speed with the complexity of the technology, to educate and, encourage regulators not to roll out regulations prematurely, because that may drive industry down the wrong path.\u201d<\/p>\n \n by Deborah Lockridge<\/a><\/p>\n Source: https:\/\/www.truckinginfo.com<\/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>\n One of the Level 4 autonomous trucks being tested by Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics. Photo: Daimler Trucks A year into their autonomous-truck collaboration, Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics cautioned that it\u2019s too early to nail down a definitive timeline for when self-driving trucks will become a part of trucking operations \u2013 but do predict…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7383,"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\/7382"}],"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=7382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7384,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382\/revisions\/7384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Taking Aim at the Self-Driving Truck Competition<\/strong><\/h5>\n
![\"Although](\"https:\/\/fleetimages.bobitstudios.com\/upload\/trucking-info\/content\/news\/2020-09\/autonomousl4-trucks_dtna-__-720x516-s.jpg\")
Progress so far<\/strong><\/h5>\n
![\"Daimler](\"https:\/\/fleetimages.bobitstudios.com\/upload\/trucking-info\/content\/news\/2020-09\/dtna-torc-approach-__-720x516-s.jpg\")
\n
![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/fleetimages.bobitstudios.com\/upload\/trucking-info\/content\/news\/2020-09\/dtna-torc-michael-__-720x516-s.jpg\")
\n<\/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><\/p>\nFLEET MANAGEMENT AUDIT<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"