Autonomous Trucks
Semi-autonomous driving systems are good, but there’s still a wide gulf between the tech today and our promised autonomous future. TuSimple is designing self-driving tech for semi-trucks, and last month the company completed a cross-country haul of watermelons with minimal human input. The journey took the fruit from the Mexico-Arizona border city of Nogales to Oklahoma City in 14 hours and 6 minutes. According to TuSimple, that’s 42-percent quicker than a human driver who would have needed to stop after 11 hours of driving to rest for 10 hours due to safety regulations. Self-driving trucks will need humans to act as safety and last-mile drivers for now; however, the company is planning to begin operating trucks without a safety driver by 2025.