Aurora integrates driverless trucks with Uber Freight to haul between Dallas and Houston

[Mike]

Amazon-backed self-driving vehicle firm Aurora is integrating its driverless tech with Uber Freight’s logistics platform to haul shipments between Dallas and Houston.

Aurora acquired Uber’s self-driving vehicle business in December 2020. Through its partnership with the company, Aurora plans to integrate with Uber’s trucking platform in multiple phases beginning with a pilot route running from North Texas to Southeast Texas.

Since last week, the company began hauling freight for Uber Freight customers with its automated trucks along the Dallas-Houston route. An Uber Freight driver drops the load with Aurora, and Aurora’s self-driving trucks haul it along the freeway between Aurora’s hubs in either city, then another human Uber Freight driver handles the last leg of the journey.

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[Mike]

Link has a paywall. I got a couple of paragraphs, feel free to pay the dollar to view the complete article. Just an instance showing that there is an ever-increasing push with this autonomous technology

 

[Sinister]

Link has a paywall. I got a couple of paragraphs, feel free to pay the dollar to view the complete article. Just an instance showing that there is an ever-increasing push with this autonomous technology

And I don't see it slowing down. Like many things it will never be 100% but this is going to be huge. I think its probably already bigger than most people realize and bigger than many companies will publicly announce.

I still think the first large group of drivers to be actively targeted will be the union line haul guys.

 

[Mike]

And I don't see it slowing down. Like many things it will never be 100% but this is going to be huge. I think its probably already bigger than most people realize and bigger than many companies will publicly announce.

I still think the first large group of drivers to be actively targeted will be the union line haul guys.

I just think there is alot of confusion about what the reality is.

Elevators were automatic for over 50 years, but still had operators until a strike started phasing them out. But, that was just an elevator, people simply wanted the safety of having someone in control while they were in it. Just a simple elevator. still, some operators today, and still people a little freaked out being in an elevator.

airplane automation has been around for over 100 years, and still no comfort level.

Trucks? Having to function around all sorts of human interaction? Good luck getting the general public to get comfortable with this. I think we are still decades away from the public being ok with autonomous cars. If ever

 

[Sinister]

I just think there is alot of confusion about what the reality is.

Elevators were automatic for over 50 years, but still had operators until a strike started phasing them out. But, that was just an elevator, people simply wanted the safety of having someone in control while they were in it. Just a simple elevator. still, some operators today, and still people a little freaked out being in an elevator.

airplane automation has been around for over 100 years, and still no comfort level.

Trucks? Having to function around all sorts of human interaction? Good luck getting the general public to get comfortable with this. I think we are still decades away from the public being ok with autonomous cars. If ever

Not necessarily. Tesla is backed up for orders well into next year and I'm willing to bet many of the models on order have the self driving option.

People are already buying it willingly.

Add to that the power large corporations have, the perceived "driver shortage" and they'll lean on government to get more of these trucks going in very short order.

 

[Mike]

Not necessarily. Tesla is backed up for orders well into next year and I'm willing to bet many of the models on order have the self driving option.

People are already buying it willingly.

Add to that the power large corporations have, the perceived "driver shortage" and they'll lean on government to get more of these trucks going in very short order.

Tesla owners have tripped over themselves to build high enough driving scores to get the self driving options for their cars. They are out there after the fact on youtube and the cars are doing stupid stuff, making emergency moves at the last minute to avoid crashes into other cars or stationary objects. This is where the focus is, not trucks.

Watch some of this and imagine 10,000 trucks out here running autonomous, and a few of them making these last minute moves to avoid a collision.

Trucks aren't built for evasive moves, and the moment you get them out of controlled environments, I believe chaos is coming. The cars have done stupid things and killed people. Imagine the coverage of a driverless truck attacking innocent people.

 

[Sinister]

In just about every case with Tesla the person behind the wheel ignored warning to take control. Which is still operator error or negligence.

They're autonomous, not artificially intelligent.

 

[Mike]

In just about every case with Tesla the person behind the wheel ignored warning to take control. Which is still operator error or negligence.

They're autonomous, not artificially intelligent.

Not talking about the famous videos of bad things happening, just people going out and testing the systems since they came out and all the stupid decisions that the car is making.

We are talking about these trucks being able to drive themselves. A quick evasive move after a brainfart in a truck can leave the truck laid over on top of someone. I think we are much further off than people want to think, still not convinced we are going to get to where we need to be to make this work.

And I am all for it if it can work. I will be the first person in line to purchase one of these trucks if I felt comfortable rearranging the furniture on the forum while it drives itself.

 

[Electric Chicken]

In just about every case with Tesla the person behind the wheel ignored warning to take control. Which is still operator error or negligence.

They're autonomous, not artificially intelligent.

That's the exact opposite of autonomous. Autonomous would be artificially intelligent and no driver in there to ever take control.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Not talking about the famous videos of bad things happening, just people going out and testing the systems since they came out and all the stupid decisions that the car is making.

We are talking about these trucks being able to drive themselves. A quick evasive move after a brainfart in a truck can leave the truck laid over on top of someone. I think we are much further off than people want to think, still not convinced we are going to get to where we need to be to make this work.

And I am all for it if it can work. I will be the first person in line to purchase one of these trucks if I felt comfortable rearranging the furniture on the forum while it drives itself.

Line haul is about the only case where it could work but even then it's the random evasiveness you as a driver see (if you're doing your job) from a quarter mile out that you ease into the other lane to avoid.

Like you said, based on Tesla car videos the truck would jerk the wheel and it would be laying on its side like an Amazon trailer.

 

[389 Hood]

There will be a push for dedicated roadways for these trucks to operate on. They may be able to communicate with other computers, but the human factor isn't built into their intelligence. Having 80,000+ pounds making instant last second decisions is going to be disastrous on the roadways.

I was following another truck up I-95 last week and I was gaining on him by just feet per mile and every time the truck came to a slight curve or overhead sign I would see the brake lights come on. I attributed to it being a newbie. After a while I got on the radio and low and behold, he had one too and told me it's the adaptive cruise program with all of the sensors. He said it's impossible to use the cruise in the daytime traffic that the truck would constantly be on the brakes. Imagine how much that constant slow down, speed up has to be on the vehicle economy. There must be some sort of way to tweak the settings to make the system less sensitive.

 

[Electric Chicken]

There will be a push for dedicated roadways for these trucks to operate on. They may be able to communicate with other computers, but the human factor isn't built into their intelligence. Having 80,000+ pounds making instant last second decisions is going to be disastrous on the roadways.

I was following another truck up I-95 last week and I was gaining on him by just feet per mile and every time the truck came to a slight curve or overhead sign I would see the brake lights come on. I attributed to it being a newbie. After a while I got on the radio and low and behold, he had one too and told me it's the adaptive cruise program with all of the sensors. He said it's impossible to use the cruise in the daytime traffic that the truck would constantly be on the brakes. Imagine how much that constant slow down, speed up has to be on the vehicle economy. There must be some sort of way to tweak the settings to make the system less sensitive.

I doubt they'll ever get their dedicated roadways. That's literally a train, just on tires instead of rails and far less efficient with far more power units per pound-mile.

Adaptive cruise/automatic braking was the best thing I ever got away from. That system is insanely stressful any time you're not on the open road, and I was seldom on the open road.